Mr. Speaker, it is a great honour to rise today. It is a very sad day, but we are all here together.
Canadians can see me look across to the right hon. Prime Minister. I look to the leader of the official opposition, who came to us across the airwaves from where he is at home, and to all of us, including the leader of the Bloc Québécois and my dear colleague the hon. member for Courtenay—Alberni.
To all Canadians, I hope you can see here a group of human beings who are heartbroken. We are the people you elected and sent to Parliament. In moments like this, we are united in grief.
This dreadful tragedy has primarily affected people, and we are all connected in this country. We are so connected. People know people who know people who are connected. To know that the hon. leader of the official opposition just recently had a photo taken, on July 1, with one of the wonderful young men whose life was cut short far too soon shows we are all connected. Today is a day when we mourn together.
We are mourning together. However, as other members have said, questions remain.
The question of how this happened will sit with us until we get answers. However, today is not that day. I have been in this place at other times when we have mourned something that happened and said, “We don't know all the answers yet, but we will find them.” We owe it to those who died, to their loved ones and to those who are injured and wounded to get those answers and take on board those lessons so that this can never happen again.
It is, of course, a horrific tragedy within our military that young men would die on a training exercise. It is also the single largest loss of life in Canada to a wildfire event. There but for the grace of God, we could have lost people in the Fort McMurray fire. People got to safety, with one death in an evacuation accident. We lost two people in Lytton. Like this event in Wainwright, that was a grass fire that came out of nowhere, and the town burned down in 15 minutes. There but for the grace of God, we could have lost people in Jasper, and over and over again. Now this has happened, with four young men killed and 39 injured and in critical condition.
This is a tragedy right now for which we focus on extending our sympathies, our condolences and, yes, our prayers for those who are in hospital that they may survive. Burn injuries are so dreadful. I thank the leader of the official opposition for mentioning the importance of giving blood.
We must do whatever we can to ease the suffering of the families connected to Aidan Goulding, Shaun Farrell, Hayden Lykkemark and Morgan Wong.
To those families, our sympathies and our tears cannot fill the holes in your lives. No matter how much we continue to pray for and think of you, we know we can only add one more word of condolence to the thousands you must be receiving. Know that you are prayed for by millions and that we are together in this grief.
I thank the Prime Minister for reminding us that on November 11 we will all gather at cenotaphs in our own communities. In that moment of thinking of the fallen, we will be thinking specifically of the young men we lost in Saturday's horrific wildfire and those who are still recovering from their injuries, so the words will be more meaningful as we say them together:
We will remember them.
We will never forget them. God bless their memory. May God ease the pain for their loved ones, friends, families and communities. We are united in our grief, and we will not forget.