2000 Legislative Session: 4th Session, 36th Parliament
HANSARD
The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.
The printed version remains the official version.
(Hansard)
THURSDAY, APRIL 13, 2000
Morning Sitting
Volume 18, Number 21
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The House met at 10:04 a.m.
Prayers.
Orders of the Day
Hon. A. Petter: I call second reading of Bill 5.
HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL DAY ACT
(second reading)
Hon. A. Petter: Hon. Speaker, I'd like to elaborate briefly on the provisions of the Holocaust Memorial Day Act. As you can see, it is a very simple act comprising only one section. Section 1 sets out that Holocaust Memorial Day, or Yom ha-Shoah, will be commemorated each year on a date determined by the Jewish calendar. This year that date will be May 2.
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The essence of the bill is in the preamble. The preamble recognizes the singularity of the Jewish Holocaust while at the same time acknowledging that racism, hate, violence and genocide continue to occur throughout the world. The first two paragraphs of the preamble explain that the Holocaust refers to the state-sponsored persecution and genocide of six million European Jews between 1933 and 1945, and the further persecution and annihilation of millions of others for physical or mental disabilities, race, religion or sexual orientation.
The last two parts of the preamble speak to the commitment of the government of British Columbia to protect British Columbians from violence, hatred and racism through legislation, education and example and to stop those who commit or foster such crimes. The language emphasizes that Holocaust Memorial Day is an opportune time to reflect on the enduring lessons of the Holocaust and to reaffirm our commitment to recognize and value the diversity and multiculturalism that characterizes British Columbia society. This diversity is an asset to be cherished and protected.
I don't think any of us who were privileged to participate yesterday in the events that took place just outside and below this chamber, following the introduction of this bill, could help but be moved in hearing from speakers, some of whom survived the Holocaust and others who spoke about the significance of the Holocaust.
The sad reality is that while I think we as a society are more aware of the presence of racism and are hopefully more determined to fight it, it is still amongst us. We must be vigilant. This legislation is legislation that I think is of significance to us all. To some of us, it has particular personal significance. But either way, what this legislation says is that we must not forget the atrocities of the past. The experiences of the Holocaust stand out clearly as probably the worst example in recent human history of racism and hatred, of evil and violence, and it is absolutely important that we do not forget that experience, lest it be repeated.
I was impressed yesterday, hearing the speakers talk from both a personal and a societal point of view. One of the young people who spoke talked from her own point of view about the experiences within our current society of racism and violence that we see around us and of the need to be vigilant as we move forward. We are moving into a new millennium, and hopefully, as we move into that new millennium, we will be setting a new direction in which racism and violence and the experiences of the past can be laid to rest. But that will not happen if we forget those experiences or deny them.
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Regrettably, there are people in the world who still try to deny that the Holocaust ever occurred, let alone that it needs to be redressed or that we need to move forward from that experience and make a new commitment against racism and violence. We've seen the experience just recently in the United Kingdom in which a court case was argued by someone holding himself out as a historian, arguing that the Holocaust was in fact not the atrocity that it was. Thankfully, the judgment that came down in that court case very clearly indicated that from the court's point of view, that point of view would not be tolerated or accepted in a British court of law.
But it is indicative to us, I think, of how vigilant we must be. There are forces out there who would deny the existence of racism, violence and evil. There are forces out there who would perpetuate such racism, violence and evil. We in this Legislature have a unique opportunity and responsibility to speak up, to have our voices heard, to join forces in community with those who directly experienced the Holocaust and its consequences and with society at large. We have the opportunity to say that we come together in solidarity in remembrance of these atrocities, in a common commitment to ensure that they are not repeated and in the determination to work together to ensure that we eliminate racism, hatred and violence in every way that we can, with every means that we can.
I want to say, on behalf of the government, how much we have appreciated the efforts of the Canadian Jewish Congress and the many other groups who brought to our attention the need for this legislation and the opportunity we have through this legislation to send a strong message. I also want to note that this legislation is not just a bare legislative enactment; it is an enactment that is backed up by commitment. For example, yesterday it was again referred to that there is an educational program being launched to ensure that young people throughout this province are reminded of the experience of the Holocaust, so they understand what happened and they are enlisted in a commitment to ensure that the racism, hatred, violence and evil that occurred as part of that Holocaust do not re-emerge, even in small, minute or unthought-of ways, within their and our collective lives.
I want to say how much I appreciate the support that the opposition party has voiced for this initiative. The fact that we can proceed as one within this House sends a very powerful signal. At times we fight each other in this House, at times we have our differences, at times we become rancorous, and at times we find it difficult to agree on many things. That just makes it all the more significant that there is complete -- as I understand and believe -- agreement on this initiative, on its importance and on the need for us to work together. That bodes very well for our commitment here and, hopefully, for the commitment that we can carry back to our constituents to work with them to eradicate the causes of racism, hatred and violence and to ensure that we build a more humane, tolerant and inclusive society for us all.
V. Anderson: Hon. Speaker, it's a privilege today to rise and support the Holocaust Memorial Day Act, for this is a
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very significant act for this Legislature, for the people of British Columbia and for the people of Canada. It sends a message around the world of a very important opportunity that we have to remember, to recognize and to recommit ourselves that the acts we are remembering today with great sadness should not happen again in our world. Yet unfortunately, we know that even as we speak, acts of a similar nature are happening in many parts of the world. We must begin, as we look out and condemn these acts, to also look within ourselves. I do not think that any of us can say we are pure and clean in any of the thoughts or actions that we ourselves commit each day, either by omission or by commission.
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We have to recognize that the tremendously diabolical acts that take place within our community and around the world often have their beginning in what we think are small, insignificant acts in our own everyday lives in our own communities. So as we look out to condemn, we must also look inside, so that we might recommit ourselves to a cleaner and purer view of one another.
It's been my privilege over the last 30 years to have begun, with the help of members of the Jewish community, to be part of the interfaith dialogue and to begin the interfaith dialogue by Jewish-Christian dialogue. At the Jewish Community Centre in Vancouver -- I am privileged now to be the MLA for that Jewish Community Centre -- we sat down and shared with each other our understanding of each other from a faith perspective -- how we came to understand the different philosophical and religious points of view that we had, which dictate the kind of lifestyle that we lived.
We also found that there were common understandings, common beliefs and common practices that we could share together to build a shared community. We realized that we could only build that common community together as we understood and appreciated both our similarities and our differences. We began to discover that we were all coming together for a common end result: that we might live in harmony with one another. But we were often coming at it with different words, with different language, with different interpretations and with different groups. And unless we appreciated and had respect for those differences, then we were not prepared to develop together the kind of communities that we need.
On this day, when we celebrate the Holocaust Memorial Day Act, we must remember, but we must remember by committing ourselves not just to condemning others
It's a relatively easy act to put down on a piece of paper our desire to recognize on this day the injustices that have taken place. It's another thing to realize -- when we heard yesterday, here in this area of community, children who suffered under these injustices, who had their parents, families and friends taken from them in such a cruel fashion
They had grown beyond hate; they had grown beyond that which is a negative expression, which will not change or affect the world. They had grown beyond that to concern -- concern to express to the coming generations, to the children in our community so that they would understand and have compassion for those who suffered, have compassion for those who died and have a kind of compassion where they could love and respect the people with whom they live. In that respect of differences and of similarities, to know that we are walking together with a common concern for each other
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We have a number of days of remembrance. On November 11 we remember the Holocaust in another sense, where generations in wars have come against each other. We remember those whose lives were taken from them in those tragedies and those who strove to overcome on behalf of justice and peace. We must have justice within our world in order to have peace. We must have shalom, which is an attitude -- of not just the cessation of war, but a shalom which is the wholeness of respect for each other as common creatures of the world in which we live, in which we must learn to grow and have harmony, one with another.
Part of our struggle is that as each generation grows up, they have to relearn this for themselves. Part of our struggle is to help that generation -- who, hopefully, will never experience that devastation themselves -- to understand that the devastation can occur again if we are not diligent and vigilant in caring for one another not just in our local community and not just in our B.C. community but also in our global community. For many of us at the time of the Holocaust, these were events that took place someplace else. We didn't have the kind of communication that we have today, so we did not, in those days, know we were a part of that until it was too late.
We have no excuse anymore for that kind of ignorance or misunderstanding, so we must be ever vigilant. I trust that this act will be a symbol and a reminder to us to make a commitment each and every day that we will have respect for one another, that we will challenge injustices -- that we will challenge them in such a way that we, in challenging injustices, do not create new injustices in the very act of doing so. That's a difficult thing to do.
One of the challenges we have in challenging hate is that we do not become hateful ourselves. We have to retain our respect for one another; we have to be vigilant with one another. We have to understand the faith and common beliefs we have, yet acknowledge that we walk on different paths -- side by side, hand in hand -- to build a community and a world where there is common acceptance and common respect, working together for peace for each and every one.
We thank the government for bringing forth this act. We appreciate their working with the Canadian Jewish Congress and others who are concerned about it and helping to reflect the very intent that through common perseverance, through common respect and through common diligence, we shall have the kind of shalom that the people of the Jewish community believe in, are dedicated to and work for.
Hon. A. Petter: I ask leave to make an introduction.
Leave granted.
Hon. A. Petter: I am very pleased to inform the House that in the gallery with us this morning are some students
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from Pacific Christian School in my constituency. I think it's wonderful that they're able to be here today, particularly for this debate, which is really not only about remembering the past but also about making sure the future for students like these is one that is free of racism, violence and hatred. I'm very pleased that they're here, and I hope they benefit from the experience. I'd ask the House to join me in making them very welcome.
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K. Krueger: I am also pleased to rise and express support, on behalf of my constituents, my family and myself, for the Holocaust Memorial Day Act. I'm grateful for the opportunity to personally do something tangible to honour the victims of the Holocaust and to work to ensure that their suffering is never forgotten. I hope the decision of this Legislative Assembly to enact this bill and begin honouring this day on a specific day each year in British Columbia will in perpetuity provide a rallying point each year to ensure that British Columbians come to despise racism and the persecution of people for being who they are.
There is a deadly flaw that we all know of in some people, which makes them prone to bully others, to abuse and persecute, and to look for a particular group that they can focus on with those attitudes and those approaches. A society that is not vigilant can allow them to gain positions of power and to abuse people. The world saw that happen in the cataclysmic events that resulted in the Second World War. We must ensure that we constantly work against those tendencies in British Columbia. We must make it clear to people who have those mind-sets, who have somehow grown up believing that it's okay to think that way and behave that way
My grandfather left Germany when he was 14 years old. His mother anticipated the wars that Germany was going to be involved in. They were very poor. She sent him on a bicycle to a seaport with a bag lunch and a little bit of money and told him to go to North America, and that's what he did. He was always hurt that she had sent him away. In fact, he never saw her again; he never made contact with her because he felt so hurt. But I am awfully glad she did that. His son, my father Albert Carl Krueger, went up the beach at Normandy on D-Day. I am very proud of him. Even though he felt a tremendous conflict within himself because he had come from German ancestry and he was horrified at the thought of shooting Germans, he did his part to put an end to that horrible war and to the Holocaust.
I've always felt shame personally that no doubt people who were related to me took part in the activities of the Nazis in Germany. I have always looked for opportunities to personally work against the mind-set, the attitude and the behaviours that can lead to the horrible events the world saw in the Holocaust and that we saw again recently in Rwanda. We have seen these recently in British Columbia in the cases of the young man who was bullied at school and jumped off the Port Mann Bridge as a result, and in the Reena Virk case. We all have a real opportunity, as elected members of this assembly, to provide leadership and to work in every possible way to counter this behaviour and these attitudes in our society.
I think this is one of the best things that have happened in this Legislature since I was elected, and it's a real privilege to be a part of it. I am certain that everyone in this Legislative Assembly will support the act, and as I said, I am very grateful for the opportunity to do so myself.
Hon. U. Dosanjh: I am honoured to rise to support this bill. Over a year ago the Canadian Jewish Congress approached me and asked that a proclamation be made with respect to the Holocaust Memorial Day of that year. I had not realized until then that that had never happened in the history of British Columbia. The Canadian Jewish Congress also advised me that it would be their preference to have that proclamation on an annual basis enshrined in legislation. I am delighted that the Attorney General has been able to do that, and the bill is before us.
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I said yesterday, at the reception after the bill was introduced, that I was not delighted to be there because we were not there by choice. This choice has been forced upon us by the injustice and the atrocities and the inhumanity of human beings towards each other. But I was delighted that this recognition, which was several decades late, finally came and that we will now have legislation on the books in British Columbia. Each and every year we will remember the history of this very singular event in the history of mankind and the impact that it has left upon all of us for ages to come. It is that impact that we need to continue to remember and think about, because what happened then was singular in its viciousness towards human beings. But that viciousness -- on a different scale, in a different form -- continues today. We have seen that occur in Rwanda; we have seen that occur in other parts of the world. We now have war crime trials going on in the world, and it is clear to me, as it is clear to all of us, that this particular problem, which resulted in six million European Jews being annihilated in a genocide, has not gone away.
Yes, we have become more aware across the world. We have a history in British Columbia and in Canada that is actually less than proud, and we need to remember that when we talk about this bill. We have a history of the Chinese head tax; we have a history of the Komagata Maru; we have a history of a whole people stripped of their basic rights; we have a whole history of the injustices towards the first nations of British Columbia and Canada that still need to be righted. So we need to remember that while we have come a long way from the 1920s and 1930s, we still have a long way to go to actually make sure that there is a basis, both in law and in reality, for equality to flourish in British Columbia. That would only happen if we are able to deal with the treaties for first nations in the next few years -- all of them that need to be done. And I say that today because it is easier for us to forget that it is injustices that, if they're not righted, sometimes lead to hate, discrimination and violence in the modern world. I want to make sure that we leave a legacy in British Columbia for future generations that is one of justice, fairness, equality and compassion.
I was really delighted to see the opposition join us yesterday. The hon. Leader of the Opposition was very eloquent in his remarks at the reception. I was touched because it is rare in our world that we come together, but this is something that we stand together on as British Columbians, as Canadians and indeed as citizens of the world. We want to make sure that we remember those who perished, that we remember the courage and the bravery of those who fought and that we remember the kind of pure hell the survivors went through and are still
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going through. It is difficult sometimes, when you have been dehumanized, to look yourself in the mirror, because you internalize the oppression and the brutality that has been visited upon you.
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So it with sadness that I remember, and we all remember, that the scars of what happened during the Second World War are still with us and still with those who survived and those whose families survived. I want to make sure that we ensure that our children in the schools and universities and colleges of British Columbia understand that those who lead them today in this province are united, are one in their and our desire to ensure that this doesn't happen again -- not only in British Columbia, not only in Canada, but throughout the world -- so that we leave this world a better, more just, fairer and more compassionate place for future generations.
G. Campbell: I would like to join the Premier today in recognizing the unanimous purpose of the House and the people of British Columbia -- in recognizing not just Holocaust Memorial Day but all that it represents. As we have said over the last couple of days, the incredible human tragedy that took place as a result of the Holocaust is not something that we can put behind us. It is not something that we can forget. It is not something that it's possible to erase from either the history of western culture or the history of mankind.
I think that as the government has brought forward this legislation, they have recognized the important symbol that the Holocaust represents to all of us. It is important, certainly, that we legislate our commitment to remembrance. It's important, certainly, that we remember the huge human tragedy that took place 50 years ago.
It's also important for us to remember, as we look back, to focus on today as well. As we think about what we want to do, I think it's important for us to think whether or not our actions in our day-to-day lives reflect the principles and the values that this bill and the words around it reflect.
At the end of the day, the Holocaust was something that took place because of a whole realm of activities that took place -- legislative activities, but human activities; interaction between one person and another, interaction between one family and another. At the end of the day, the six million people were individuals. They were people with family. They were 1.5 million children who lost their lives through the Holocaust. They were carpenters, millwrights, doctors and lawyers. They were business people and artists. They were people. They were politicians that in fact were willing to stand up for the principles that are reflected in this bill.
It is the principles of this bill that are so important for us to remember. That is in fact what can be our legacy to those who lost their lives -- that we do focus on those principles and move forward with our human actions, day-to-day interactions between ourselves and our next-door neighbours; between ourselves and the people across the street, other parts of the province, other parts of the country and other parts of the world.
This is a very sad human story. As mayor of Vancouver, I can recall the first time I was asked to go and participate in Kristallnacht, which was the night of the broken glass, the night of the shattered glass, when people ran through the streets of town after town in Germany breaking glass and breaking private property that was owned by people that they felt were Jewish. I can remember hearing the survivors talk about the impact of that on their lives.
We think of these survivors, and some of them are pretty old now. These are scars that they have carried with them their entire lives. We heard yesterday from a woman who was a child survivor. I think that sometimes we should put ourselves in the position of that child -- what that child went through, what the experiences were that she had. It can be nothing but devastating.
For those of us who have been fortunate enough to live in Canada, to live in British Columbia, to enjoy the rights that our forefathers have granted us -- the rights of freedom to worship, freedom to choose and democratic participation -- to think how we would feel if our children were put in that situation, I can't even begin to imagine it. Sometimes when there are things that we can't begin to imagine, we try and put them behind us. We try and forget them. This is a case where we cannot forget and we must not forget.
Sometimes it's uncomfortable for us to recognize that there are little examples that take place in our lives and that we read about every day in the newspapers or see every day in the media, and every once in a while we have to recognize that that reflects the fact that we have not yet reached our destination of a world that is free of bigotry, free of intolerance, free of racism -- a world where each young woman and young man can pursue their own dreams in their own ways, pursue their own faith in their own way, develop their own spirit in their own way and know that they're free to do so. We still have a long way to go with regard to that.
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One of the things I've been fortunate enough to do is spend some time in Africa in the early seventies. I can tell you we are very fortunate here that we do hold these things up and look at them and that we do challenge ourselves to meet new and higher standards day in and day out. In many parts of the world that does not take place.
The Premier's correct when he points out that this goal we've set for ourselves -- as we strive to achieve it -- is something that Canada may be leading in, but we have not accomplished our goal yet. We have not reached the destination yet.
Holocaust Memorial Day is the result of the work of literally thousands of people from across Canada. The Canadian Jewish Congress has worked tirelessly to bring forward the information, the stories of person after person, and Yom ha-Shoah is an opportunity for everyone to remember. Six million people lost their lives -- 1.5 million children -- and there were many millions of people who were accomplices in that. No one really could stand and say they weren't part of that. So I think this is a time for us to reflect not just on our commitment to memory -- our commitment to remembrance of those lives that were lost -- but on our commitment to remember the lessons that we should have learned from that exercise.
Legislation is important. Again, I congratulate the government on the educational development that they put through with the curriculum, where I understand they're taking the curriculum out to schools for grades 5 and 6 and 11. I think that it is important -- education, legislation and our personal dedication as MLAs and representatives of the people of British Columbia and as British Columbians as a whole throughout the province -- to reflect on this day and what it
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means and on what we can do to make sure that we never experience something like the Holocaust again.
R. Thorpe: I rise today to proudly speak in favour and in support of the Holocaust Memorial Day Act, Bill 5. Mr. Speaker, I've had the tremendous opportunity to live in Israel in 1977, '78 and '79 and to travel with my family throughout the country of Israel. We've had the pleasure to have great friends, to sit with their families and hear their stories. I often remember Ariella and David Tamir, Menachem Sella, Bondi Dror and Danny Zohar, and how we talked about how the Holocaust impacted on their families.
I was very, very touched and very honoured to have one individual, Joe Steiner, work with me when I worked in Israel. Joe was a young child who survived. I had the pleasure of him sharing with me and my family the unfortunate things that happened to others and to hear from Joe how happy he was to have survived and to have his own family.
This Holocaust has touched each and every family in Israel and most Jewish people around the world. We must all in this House reach out. We must work together, and we must make sure that such a human tragedy never ever happens again. We must never forget; we can never let our guard down on such things. We must be very, very compassionate and understanding to those who have suffered and those who carry this very, very heavy burden.
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In the future, Mr. Speaker, all of us must be prepared to act when such events are unfolding. We must as human beings be prepared to take the bold action to ensure that no matter what part of the world, no matter what country, no matter what race, this can never, ever happen again.
I would like to thank the Canadian Jewish Congress and all those who have worked so hard for so many years to make this dream a reality. To those I say: "Shalom, shalom."
Hon. G. Mann Brewin: For all kinds of reasons, I am very pleased to be here today to speak in support of Bill 5, the Holocaust Memorial Day Act. Others have described in good detail important aspects of the issue. I want to come at it from another perspective as well.
Yesterday, in the Life section of the Times Colonist, there was a story about the Passover. April 19 begins the eight-day annual rituals around spring and particularly the exodus of the Jewish slaves from Egypt 3,000 years ago. I have had the opportunity to attend occasional Seder suppers like that. They are amazing occasions when in fact the discussion around the table, around the symbolic foods and the wines and the reading of the haggadah is all about remembering slavery, remembering oppression and remembering lack of freedom.
I was interested to note one of the comments made by Norene Gilletz that article: "If I don't do these things, who is going to teach my children?" And I found myself saying, who indeed? Jews the world over will be celebrating and observing these rituals. But what about the rest of us? Are we not also part of those traditions and those rituals of each other's observances? And I say yes, we are. We must be, as we all know, ever vigilant, constantly paying attention and doing something. Each of us must find -- and does find, I think -- our own connection to these international and historical events.
I remember vaguely, at age 13, travelling with my family -- my parents and my sister -- in Germany, Belgium and France in 1952. In the piece of Germany we could get into, we got to see one of the gas chambers. I remember not comprehending, not understanding what I was seeing and not understanding when my father, who was an English teacher, a history teacher and ever the teacher, described the kinds of atrocities and the kinds of unbelievable things that happened. There I was standing there and looking at all of this.
Now, later in life, I think about the six million Jews who were exterminated. I think about the religious groups that were drawn into that and the gay-lesbian community that was drawn into that. That affects me because I have a lesbian daughter. I can't think that, and I don't want to think that. I can't go there. But I must go there, because I must be vigilant for the children, for the families and for the people. Now I think, too, in my new ministry, of the folks with mental and physical disabilities who were also a focus for that extermination process. Again, ever vigilant, ever vigilant
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Yesterday I met a young man named Jeremy. We were talking about something else altogether. I said that I was going to be speaking, and he said how important this legislation was to him. I looked at him, a young man, and he said: "My grandparents
Later after the war, the aunt went back to Warsaw and found other family relatives who had also been murdered. The uncle said he would never forget the face of the SS officer who took his father and his mother. It was interesting that in 1955, some ten years later, he saw this SS officer, and he was a frail old man -- "the kind of frail old man I'd give a bus seat to," he said. He realized that there was a kind of moment of perspective. You can't forgive, but he was struggling to put it into perspective.
Jeremy went to Auschwitz to have a visit and to have some understanding. While he was there, he came upon an interpretative centre, I guess -- a room filled with files with names and photographs. It seems that there were certain efficiencies about what happened. Anyway, he was shown some photographs of people with similar names. None of them were his relatives, but he saw the photographs, and he wasn't prepared for his reaction: "They could have been me. I look like that. I could have been there. That could have been me." Then he thinks about the two generations later and his two little girls and what that means to them.
So this act honours Jeremy; it honours Jeremy's grandparents. It honours so many others that we all have talked about and know about. We have all seen the films, we've read the books, we've heard the stories, and we are horrified again and again.
Yet it continues. I don't know how many of my colleagues saw some television coverage last night of General Dallaire, who was in Rwanda, and the terrible story he told and the terrible toll that it has taken on him -- as an observer
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and a leader in the horrendous situation that he found himself in and that many of us still, to this day, find ourselves in. When will it end? Is there no hope?
Last Friday I had a chance to hear Madam Justice Louise Arbour at the University of Victoria, where she received an honorary doctorate. She suggests that maybe there is some kind of hope for those kinds of atrocities -- human rights, fundamental rights that are attacked and destroyed. She said that in the last five years, human rights issues have been better defined. Now there is a process. Now they can be taken to an international court of law where the issues can be heard and in fact judgments meted out. That's a change, and that's only been in the last five years.
I want to talk a little bit further about Victoria and the very strong Jewish community that exists here and how proud the community is of the work that it does, which the rest of the community significantly appreciates. In Victoria, I think we have the oldest synagogue west of Toronto -- certainly west of the Manitoba-Ontario border -- built in 1867. It was built with the hands of many people in this community, including the Masons. In Victoria the Jewish community has been very fortunate that in fact there has been a lot of interaction between all the faith communities. That has been an enormous strength for us in this community. Many of you drive by the synagogue on the corner of Pandora and Blanshard Streets.
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When I first came to Victoria, however, you couldn't tell what that building was. In the late forties, just as the Jews had felt shut out in Germany and elsewhere in the world, as they were
Anyway, around that time, in the late forties, there was that feeling of being shut out. The Jews were not welcome; Jews were not appreciated; Jews were not to be involved. So they covered up that beautiful building that we now see today. It was totally stuccoed. It became windowless; it became featureless. A small door let you in on the side on Pandora.
But over time things have changed, and we've seen that. Part of the opening up, part of the response of the rest of the community to the Jewish community and the folks within our communities, has been the magnificent restoration of that synagogue. In the early eighties, 1983, it was opened again. All the windows opened up; the doors opened up; the bricks were exposed. This whole community of greater Victoria supported that and worked toward that. Every faith, every condition of human being supported all of that. The Jewish community has continued to lead in this area and, as the Leader of the Opposition mentioned, here too in Victoria. The honouring of the beginning of much of the oppression that happened in the war happens here too. Kristallnacht happens here.
There is a piece of this that is another connection for me personally. It happened the night of December 9-10, 1938. I was born in 1938, about two weeks later. Somehow -- I didn't know about it at the time, of course -- there is a connection there. That connection says that on the night of broken glass, when so much property was destroyed -- glass everywhere -- more than 38 lives were lost. Over 100 synagogues were destroyed, and nobody intervened. Nobody stopped that destruction. I'm drawn to that event. I'm drawn to those occasions when we say: "We must keep remembering; we must keep attending." We must keep participating so that we too can say: "It can't happen; we must not let this happen again."
Those moments offer us opportunities to remember, to hear the survivors' stories of their huge losses, of their incarceration and then of their new lives, and how to share their grief and how to share their responses.
One of the things that's important -- the society that was formed is called the Victoria Holocaust Remembrance Society -- is that while it's important to remember, and we must all remember, it's also important to teach. Every year they sponsor a student symposium at the University of Victoria, where they bring in some 1,300 students -- generally from Vancouver Island -- to have the same kind of conversation: to describe the piece of history, to have survivors there talking about their stories about when they were young people and what happened to them.
I mentioned earlier that another valuable tool that has come to the greater Victoria area has been the way the interfaith communities have come together. In fact, I think this year they're working to have Kristallnacht remembrance occasions happen in other churches, not just in the synagogue. I think this is another way we all learn and all share that experience and that history. The joint approach will be very important. We know that other discussions are happening.
In Canada, as I mentioned earlier, in a position that was taken in the thirties and the forties, they said "None is too many." With the current refugee programs in every community across this country, Canada has built a reputation since those days for openness, compassion and understanding. We cannot change the past attitudes of Canadians, but we can as a whole do a lot better, and we are. We must continue to be vigilant; we must continue to be committed to action; we must never forget.
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K. Whittred: It is my pleasure today, along with many other members of this chamber, to rise and speak in support of the Holocaust Memorial Day Act. I am pleased, hon. Speaker, to see that the government is legislating remembrance of this horrendous event. It is part of the remembering and is one more piece that the Jewish people can be proud of and can add to those things they have accomplished in terms of trying to ensure that this sort of event doesn't happen again.
The Holocaust was undoubtedly the most horrendous example of genocide the world has known. It is not the only example of genocide but certainly the most outrageous, the most outlandish, the most totally-beyond-description example that almost anyone can imagine. Genocide is when the government actually makes a plan to go out and rid itself of a number of its citizens. This, of course, is what we call the Holocaust. It is that time in history during the 1930s and forties when a government decided that they would systematically eliminate a significant number of people within their population. Many speakers have spoken today about the need to ensure that this doesn't happen again. That, of course, is part of the reason that we enshrine this memorial in legislation.
The Premier made reference to the sorry past that British Columbia has in many aspects of racism and other kinds of
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hatred. We remember that we had the head tax, we remember the Komagata Maru, and we have a variety of things which we are not very proud of. Further to that, we can recall that at the time of the Holocaust, we did not have a very memorable record. The Evian conference in 1938 was one in which the western world, Canada included, said no, we will not help these people.
We have not always learned these lessons very well. We see genocide being repeated in Rwanda, in Bosnia, in Cambodia. I think it is our challenge to bring those experiences closer to home and to look at how we can, in our own lives and in our own jobs, relate those experiences into meaningful dialogue and meaningful acts so that they won't be repeated again.
One of the experiences that I have had in my life is to work with curriculum. Actually, one of the more memorable experiences I have had is to work with the development of curriculum in terms of the Holocaust. I would like to take a moment to pay tribute to some of the people, particularly from within the Jewish community, who have struggled for so many years to try to put into place the various pieces of legislation, education materials, and so on, that will ensure that this does remain before the public.
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The struggle to put curriculum in place has not been an easy one. There have always been struggles for time; there have been struggles for questions like what grade it goes to, and so on. I'm very pleased that there is curriculum now developed for the grade 11 curriculum. I would also, along with my colleague from Victoria-Beacon Hill, like to make reference to the yearly Holocaust symposium. The Holocaust symposium is a conference for high school students that has been held yearly for many, many, many years. It is an excellent event, which is sponsored
[T. Stevenson in the chair.]
I would also like to pay tribute to the dozens and dozens and dozens of people from the Jewish community, particularly the survivors, who go out year after year volunteering their time to student groups and community groups and tell their stories -- which must be a very, very painful experience. Yet for them personally, that is how they bring the message home.
I will conclude by saying that one of the images that is burned in my mind from my many years of teaching this in the classroom is a picture that was on one of the textbooks. It is a picture of flowers blowing in the breeze, and it was done by the children of Theresienstadt. Even in the depths of the most horrific experience in the world, these children were filled with hope and with the playfulness that children exhibit. I would like to think that this legislation, along with other things like the development of curriculum and paying attention to what we do as legislators in our own lives, will help to bring those aspirations to fruition.
Hon. I. Waddell: I rise to contribute, however briefly, to this debate. First of all, let me say to the hon. member from North Vancouver who last spoke that I congratulate her on her remarks. She very much covered some of the feelings in the House, and I think that was well put.
I just want to add a few matters from perhaps a personal side, if I might, because I think this is a very personal debate for a lot of us, especially some of us who have been to Israel and seen the Holocaust
I ask myself, why do we remember the Holocaust? I think we do because there's a collective guilt that we all have about what happened. We -- not our generation, but the generation behind us -- eventually responded to fascism and fought the Second World War. They defeated Hitler, Mussolini and the Japanese military, and they defeated fascism. We eventually did, although as the hon. member from North Vancouver pointed out, before the war we were pretty tentative in some of our reactions. It took us a while as a people to respond, but we did respond. And we've got to thank our veterans across Canada and the world for defeating fascism and exposing the Holocaust in all its horrible reality.
It has an effect. You will recall the image, from the Balkan crisis in the last few years, of the starving, thin man in the concentration camp -- what looked like a concentration camp and was reported as such and was determined as such in a recent libel case in the United Kingdom in the last few months. You saw the starving, thin man, and I think that image on TV ultimately made the western countries respond to the Balkan crisis. Why did they respond? When I saw it, I thought: something's going to happen. The West will respond; NATO will respond; Europe will respond; the United States will respond -- because it's an image of the Holocaust. In a sense, if good can come out of evil, there's a certain good that came to us as a society. We responded, because we thought: we don't want to have another Holocaust. That's a crime against humanity -- ethnic cleansing.
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The other point I want to make is that we should remember that the Holocaust didn't just kill Jews. They killed gypsies, and they killed gays. They killed minority groups that didn't fit in, and they killed the disabled. That is something that I think we have learned. I hope our students -- some of whom I see are here today in the House -- have learned
I want to say something personal on this. I was with a group called Parliamentarians for Global Action when I was a Member of Parliament in that other House. We went to Washington for a meeting. It was parliamentarians from all across the world. It was a great group. There was an American Senator. His name is Arlen Specter, a Republican. You wouldn't kind of anticipate this kind of thing from a Republican Senator, but he was a Jewish American, and I think it may have come from that, from the background of his memories of the Holocaust -- whatever.
Senator Specter advocated -- and this was in the early nineties -- a world criminal court. I was lucky enough to get saddled with the file. I was asked to report to Parliamentarians for Global Action. What did we think of a world criminal court? One thing, for me, led to another. It led to a meeting with some academics in northern Italy, and then it led to a meeting with some parliamentarians in Siracusa in southern Italy in about 1991. Then it led to a delegation that went to the Secretary General of the United Nations in New York. We pushed for a world criminal court.
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You know what? We got it; we got a world criminal court. It is probably the highlight of my political life. It came late in my career as a parliamentarian. It came mixed with a number of other people across the world who pushed for this. We had to face, in our sessions of planning, what kind of crimes we would put into it. How would we define what kind of crimes in a world criminal court? Of course, the major crime was crime against humanity. Where did we look? We looked to the Nuremberg trials after the Second World War, when the Nazi high command was put on trial.
I talked to Kenneth Galbraith, the economist, who was actually a prosecutor who interviewed the German high command at Nuremberg. He told us what these fascists were like. You know, they were human beings like us, and they went astray. They went more than astray; they perpetuated the Holocaust -- and why? So we have to ask ourselves
What we are trying to recognize with the Holocaust Memorial Day is: what can we do to make sure it never happens again? I was proud that we worked on the international criminal court. We're applying the laws for crimes against humanity to some of the people that have been arrested in the Balkans. Not enough of them have been arrested. It is going to be a long process. Madam Justice Louise Arbour of the Supreme Court of Canada was the prosecutor there, a distinguished Canadian who we should be really proud of.
That is part of the Holocaust legacy. That is why I am proud that all of us in the Legislature are recognizing what it means here in British Columbia. This is humanity; this is worldwide. This is Canada and B.C. contributing in our own special way to something that we are learning from the past. We are setting a non-partisan future to make sure this never happens again.
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T. Nebbeling: I have been listening with much interest and also with much emotion to what has been said today in the House. Many of the feelings that I feel, and felt in particular yesterday when we went through a small ceremony to celebrate the introduction of Holocaust Memorial Day in British Columbia
First of all, I do appreciate everything that has been said here today. It is not an easy topic to talk about. It is for me very revealing to see how much truly is still within all of us when it comes to this genocide that happened 60 years ago -- started 62 years ago and then went on for well over seven years.
The whole issue of the Holocaust has always been part of my life. I grew up in Amsterdam; I grew up in a Jewish neighbourhood. In my own family I lost members during the Second World War, and I always had a desire to go to one place that I couldn't go to -- that is, Bergen-Belsen, which is in Eastern Europe. Last year, because of the pull-down of the border between East Berlin and West Berlin, I had the opportunity to go to Bergen-Belsen. I'd like to share a little with the members here of what that does to a person who has truly never been exposed to what happened in these camps.
Bergen-Belsen is a big land mass that is about 40 kilometres away from East Berlin, and it is in a grey area. There are many trees, but it was in the fall; there were no leaves. It was just the setting that really was needed for me to experience what most probably was experienced tenfold or a hundredfold by people who were taken to that place.
You arrive in this area with this big wooden gate that is now open, and you walk on a long gravel path towards the centre in which there is a small museum. Just walking that path alone, knowing that that path was walked on by hundreds of thousands of people in the past, who knew that they were entering hell. They didn't know how much of a hell it would be, but it was hell
Today there are only two barracks left, and just before I and my partner arrived there, there had been an attempt to burn down one of the barracks by a group of young Nazis who claimed, like many others still do today, that the Holocaust never really happened and that any remnants that would keep the memory of the Holocaust alive would be destroyed. They had tried to burn down this particular barrack. They didn't succeed; however, they did leave for people to see the damage to the barrack because of the fire.
That alone, what I saw there, is a justification for what we are doing here -- to say we have to create other mementos and other monuments that cannot be burned but can be used in perpetuity for people to stop, even if it is at least once a year in this province, and say: "That happened at one time in the history of our Earth." That alone was a very touching, very emotional moment -- to stand there in the barrack knowing that in that space, which was half the size of this room, 600 people -- minimum -- were put as their lodging.
After walking the grounds for about four or five hours and seeing all the points that, for many people who are survivors today, are creating memories that must be very painful to come back to, I visited the centre in the middle of the grounds, which is a Holocaust museum -- let's put it that way -- where thousands of pictures of the period that the camp was in operation truly tell the story of what happened there and the things that people had to go through.
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For me personally, the most emotion was created by the entry log that is on display in that centre. It's the entry log and the exit log, and you can go and look through it and see how many people arrived in a given week and how many people left the camp. We all knew how they left, and the first group, which was always the big group, of course
Seeing that log: "Juden, 2,500 entered today; mentally handicapped people, 200; political prisoners -- people who spoke out against what the Nazis were doing -- 200; gay men, gay women, 300." Then at the end of the week, how many have left, you could just see how, on a weekly basis, they
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brought in enough people they knew they could somehow "deal with." I've tried to be sensitive. That particular log is something that I will never, ever forget.
When we talk about, "We will never forget," I still see a lot of racism in our world. I'm not just talking about Kosovo; I'm not just talking about Botswana. I'm talking about Rwanda. I'm also talking about what happens here in our own province, where I still see hatred towards gay and lesbian men and women. When I see that happen today, I really wonder if many of these people have ever learned. I wonder if we couldn't once send them to a place and let them see what had happened there, which was driven by kind of the same hate focused on groups in our society today.
That is something that I really wanted to put on the table here as my personal hope -- that focusing on the Holocaust Memorial Day for today and in the future will hopefully stop people from thinking that what they're doing today is right, knowing that they're hurting people as the Jewish people were hurt in the past.
Hon. G. Wilson: I'm proud to be able to rise and represent the people of Powell River-Sunshine Coast, as well as those on this side of the government, in support of this bill today. Most of what needs to be said, I think, has been said in this debate today. There have been some personal stories that have been most touching. There have been some anecdotal references that I think bring back memories in all of us of the tragedy that occurred during the Holocaust between 1933 and 1945. But I just want to, in my very brief remarks today -- for those who may be reading this in Hansard later or watching on television today -- make reference a little bit to the preamble and exactly what the preamble says in this bill.
In the first portion it certainly does talk about the fact that the Holocaust refers to a state-sponsored, systematic persecution and genocide of six million European Jews -- men, women and children -- by the Nazis and their collaborators between 1933 and 1945. But it also goes on to say, as many members have made reference, that the Jews were not alone. There were people who were homosexual and people who, by virtue of their race or their religion or by virtue of their disabilities, physical or mental, were also persecuted at that time.
It talks about the systematic violence, genocide, persecution, racism and hatred which continue throughout the world. Some have made reference to Rwanda, to some of the atrocities in Europe. And I would say that as Minister of Education, in the time I was there, we were putting together educational materials for the schools so that young people, some of whom are here listening to this debate today, could understand more fully exactly what took place in our history.
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A very strong and very emotional representation was made to me, as minister, by members of the Asian community with respect to the Asian holocaust and what took place in China, in Indochina and in parts of Southeast Asia with respect to systematic genocide at the hands of totalitarian governments that had no sense of human dignity whatever.
So I think it is important, as we look at this bill and as we move forward through the establishment of the Holocaust Memorial Day as determined by the Jewish calendar, for us to reflect upon the inhumanity that continues in our world today. The Premier made reference to the fact that our own history in British Columbia has been marked by intolerance, by racial bigotry and by general ignorance. The Komagata Maru incident was one that he made reference to with respect to people who came from India. I think those of us who have worked, and continue to work, with respect to first nations in British Columbia know that there is a long history that needs to be corrected and a long set of circumstances that need to be understood.
It is with respect to that that I can stand up and speak so strongly -- representing both the people in Powell River-Sunshine Coast, who elected me, and also members on this side of the House -- in support of this bill. It is not only essential that we should not forget the atrocities and learn from what has taken place through our history, but I think it is also important that we focus on those atrocities that continue today. Anywhere on the globe on any given day, one can tune in to television and see people subjected to these kinds of atrocities. It is often not highlighted if it's in a small and rather remote part of the world, with people who live in places that are remote and difficult for our eyes to see. People of all faiths around the world are frequently persecuted because of their faith and often disappear. Because of the kind of totalitarian military regimes that have, from time to time, ruled South American countries, we've seen some difficulties there with respect to people who would simply be arrested and apprehended at night and taken away -- and their families never know of them again. This is not part of a long-ago history; this is part of a history that is very recent. It is part of the present in many parts of the world today.
I'm very pleased to have an opportunity to stand up and speak in favour of this bill, and to say, as I do so, that I think all British Columbians and all Canadians should find ourselves enormously fortunate that we live in a country where, for the most part, there is tolerance and a greater degree of understanding. As Canadians, we have often been a worldwide beacon of hope to those people who, unfortunately, live in countries where that level of understanding does not exist.
We as Canadians have had a proud history in peacekeeping. We have had a proud history of moving in to try to separate those who, for historical reasons or for reasons undetermined to ourselves, seem unable to live together, so that we can work toward peace, understanding and harmony in the world. We have a proud history as Canadians. I look forward to seeing that continue, and I think that this day and this bill mark one more stone in the wall that we build -- a wall of tolerance and peace that will hopefully embrace people and not separate and divide them.
S. Hawkins: It's a privilege for me to stand here on behalf of my constituents and personally support the Holocaust Memorial Day Act. As a member of a visible and religious minority, it makes me proud today that all sides of the House support this very worthwhile endeavour.
This is a proud day, I think -- we're going to pass this bill -- but I can tell you that we haven't always, in this country, had proud moments. This bill, to me, is about hope. It is about hope for the human spirit and hope that our future generations will remember that we haven't had proud moments, and hope that perhaps we can rise above some of the things that have happened and remember the horrors of the genocide and the racist actions that have taken place in the world and in our own country.
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[ Page 14980 ]
I moved here 37 years ago, growing up in a small farming community in Saskatchewan where we were the only coloured family. As a member of a visible community, I have personally experienced some of the actions of racism. So today it makes me proud that British Columbia is leading the country in passing a bill that will recognize the horrors of war, the horrors of genocide and the horrors of racism. There are still forces that will deny the existence of the Holocaust. There are forces that will deny the evidence and the existence of the memories of those who suffered, those who died and those who live to remember. Ethnic cleansing and genocide exist around the world today. Members have mentioned Rwanda and Bosnia and other countries.
I had the opportunity last fall to visit Amsterdam. Every day I walked past the Anne Frank House, and every day I thought, I'm going to go in there. But I didn't, because I didn't want to face it. On the last day of my holiday I did go in, and I'm glad I did. It was very moving; it was very unforgettable. It was a really profound experience. I tried to imagine being a child living it that little attic -- I think it was two or three rooms -- crawling up the little staircase, having the windows totally blacked out so I couldn't see sunlight for two years and having the spirit that this little girl had. In fact, in 1942, Anne Frank writes in her diary: "In spite of everything, I still believe that people are basically good at heart." Imagine that.
At this time I just want to honour people in my community who had the foresight to do things to make us remember that we have to remember. In November
I just want to read quickly from a chorus that was sung in Terezín, and it's the Terezín hymn. It was written for the first cabaret performance at the camp. It was written by Karl Svenk, who was a musician and artist before the war. The chorus was sung in the camps; it was sung in Czech. It's a cry of hope and defiance. I'll quote it quickly:
We will conquer and survive all the cruelty in our land.
With the laughter in our hearts, we're hand in hand.
Days will come, days will go, always moving, restless crowd.
We can't write with only 30 words allowed.
Wait, for we will see a newer dawn will come to lift the heart.
The time will come to pack our bags and homeward joyfully depart.
We will conquer and survive all the cruelty in our land.
We will stand on ghetto ruins hand in hand.
I think the significance of this day is hope -- hope that our children and future generations will remember. I also want to pay tribute to the Canadian Jewish Congress and all the people who made it possible to get this legislation in place.
Hon. M. Farnworth: It's an honour to rise in this debate and follow the member for Okanagan West. I'd like to pick up on her remarks. This piece of legislation, which all of us in this House support, is very much about hope. It is very much about the future and as much a remembrance about things past and events past.
One of the things I think is important and why this piece of legislation is so important is that when you look at the films, photographs and newsreels of what happened from 1933 to 1945, you see these pictures and images -- black and white, very grainy. As horrible and tragic and dreadful as they are, they seem so far away. They seem to be from a time long ago that is so far from the comprehension of many of us.
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I was born 15 years after the war. My father was a young boy during the war. Those images seem like a place and time that has no bearing on us, but nothing could be further from the truth. What has happened then is still happening today, as members have said, in Bosnia and Rwanda and could easily happen again in other parts of the world. There has been a conscious effort to somehow ensure that it doesn't. As each year passes, the generations that felt firsthand the horror and terror and the experience of those camps in Dachau, Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen and others too numerous to mention -- the six million Jews, 1.5 million of them children; the hundreds of thousands of people who were there because of their sexual orientation or because they were gypsies or because they were deemed mentally unfit
The survivors and their families get older year by year, and there are fewer people around to impart firsthand what happened -- to impart firsthand the knowledge to their children, to their families, to their communities. At some point that generation passes from the stage of history, and what we're left with is the knowledge that's been imparted to us and the pictures and the stories and the words and the images. But the people who were there, who suffered, are gone. The challenge then becomes, for those of us who are here, to take that knowledge and that wisdom and that experience and ensure that the lessons that were to be learned from that, which people want passed on to ensure that it never happens again, aren't lost and that it isn't forgotten, that it isn't put aside.
That's why it's crucial that we have days and legislation such as this. It is a reminder, a constant reminder, about what went on before and how it must not happen again. It will not happen and cannot happen only if succeeding generations understand the enormity of the events of 1933-45 and the enormity of the events happening today in other parts of the world and why we have to be vigilant and why we must always deal with issues such as racism, genocide and ethnic cleansing in a vigilant, aggressive way. Our failure to do so sows the seeds for this type of horror in the future. This legislation is as much about honouring those who suffered and died in the Holocaust as it is about the opportunity to educate those alive today and those generations yet to come, to ensure that it truly doesn't happen again.
G. Plant: I learned a lot yesterday, and I was deeply moved during the course of the ceremony that occurred here in this assembly building to mark the fact that Bill 5 had been introduced.
This morning I've learned a lot, and I've been moved by the things that have been said by people on both sides of this House about the significance of Bill 5, an act that will make Holocaust Memorial Day a permanent part of who we are and
[ Page 14981 ]
what we are in the province of British Columbia. I'm not equipped to try to summarize all the things that have been said and the things that have moved me.
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I do want, though, to make one or two points about what we're doing here in this assembly this morning. Ordinarily, when we come to this chamber, we do so for the purpose of making laws. We also do so for the purpose of collecting funds from the taxpayers of British Columbia that we then use to spend on programs for the public good. But when we come here to make laws, I think all of us do so in the hope and with the intention that the laws we make will change the society in which we live for the better.
In fact, that's what we're doing here today. We are about to enact a law. It is a short piece of legislation. It has one section; it's one sentence. It says that the day of the Holocaust, Yom ha-Shoah, as determined each year by the Jewish calendar, is Holocaust Memorial Day throughout British Columbia. When I think about that for just a moment and think about that sentence and the fact that it will become the law
The thought that occurred to me as I was sitting here was that hard as it might be for those of us who are lawyers and those of us who are legislators to come to terms with this reality, the Holocaust was also made possible by law. The web of the Holocaust was so pervasive that it not only in fact was about persons who hated, but it was deliberate, it was systematic, and it was bureaucratic. It relied and exploited the existence of technology in the form of transportation corridors, and it also relied upon the law.
There were laws passed in Germany in the 1930s and the 1940s that facilitated and made possible the Holocaust. That's how pervasive the web of the Holocaust is. It touches, it stains, it destroys, and it corrodes almost everything that we would like to be proud of about the accomplishments of human society. Here we are today recognizing that fact. We're trying, in a small way, to send a message to maybe do something, which is perhaps as much symbolic as anything else, by sending a signal to the people of British Columbia that here in this Legislative Assembly we think there is enduring significance to the Holocaust.
The second thing I want to say is something that has been said over and over again this morning, which I want to join my voice to. It's the statement about how this bill speaks both to the past and to the present -- and to the future, for that matter. This bill reminds us about the conditions that gave rise to the Holocaust. The attitudes of hatred, of discrimination and of racism are still among us. They flourish tragically wherever we are not vigilant in acting to wipe them out. To that extent, this bill provides the government of British Columbia with reason to invest in curriculum initiatives and to ensure that across the province there are educational initiatives undertaken to inform students and all of us about the past and also to try to rid us of these things that lie buried within our society. I think that's also something that needs to be said about this bill time and time again.
One of the things that was said yesterday at the ceremony -- and really, it was what struck me as the most powerful thing that was said -- was a statement made by a young student from the Vancouver Jewish High School. I think her name was Gillian Rosenberg. She spoke to the group assembled there about the significance of this day to her, and she said many, many things that I thought were very insightful. I wish I had written them down to make sure that I had the words exactly right. The gist of the statement was this: the one thing that we seem to have learned, the one thing that we seem to be able to say about the lessons of history, is that we haven't learned the lessons of history.
I think that many of the people who have spoken this morning have reminded us of that, in talking about the things that are happening around this in our communities in British Columbia and all over the world that should cause us to be apprehensive about whether or not we have truly put the conditions of racism or are even very far down the road to putting behind us the conditions that give rise to racism and hatred.
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Robert Nozick, the American philosopher, described the Holocaust as a massive and continuing distortion of the human space. I think his point is not just that the Holocaust is something that happened but that it has continuing significance. One of the things that's often said by people who've thought much more deeply about this than I certainly have is that they talk about the Holocaust as being almost unspeakable in its horror and that in some way even to speak about it is to demean its significance. It presumes that we can describe something that truly is indescribable. The human or whatever language is inadequate for the task of giving expression to the horror represented by the Holocaust and yet is so profoundly important that we continue to try. That is, I think, what this piece of legislation is about. I am convinced that it's right that we legislate our recognition of both the history of the Holocaust and its enduring significance. I'm honoured to have the opportunity to join with all members of this House today in expressing our support for this bill.
Hon. A. Petter: I've been very moved by the comments and statements that have been made from all sides of the House, and I very much appreciate the participation of all those who have spoken. It occurs to me, in closing debate, that what this is about is very much a recognition of how frail we are as human beings. This bill is about the Holocaust. But it's not just about the Holocaust; it's about the forces that created the Holocaust and forces that continue to swirl around us in society. It's about our revulsion for the past, but as the member who just spoke, the justice critic, indicated -- and others have -- that it's also about our hope for the future.
It occurs to me that as individuals, as human beings, we are very frail, very weak. We get bound up and caught up in causes, and group dynamics can very often draw people into very questionable judgments and enterprises. Certainly the experience around the Holocaust is demonstration of that. The drawing in of people, not just in Europe but everywhere, into a psychology was very dangerous and played upon individual frailty to produce a group dynamic that truly was evil.
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I think it's therefore important that we are acting here not just as individuals. If we are going to resist our own frailty and the tendency to be drawn into group dynamics, it's important that we use our collective sense to make sure that the group dynamic is a dynamic for good, a dynamic that resists the dark side that sometimes calls to us as individuals.
What I heard today from all sides of the House was a very strong commitment from everyone here not only to recognize the horrors of the past but also to make sure that those who suffered those horrors did not die in vain and that we examine ourselves, we examine our roles and we look around us in society -- and to make sure that we do everything we can to make sure that those lessons are lessons that we learn and act upon in each and every way we can each and every day. We have the privilege to act as legislators and the responsibility to act as citizens. I think that makes this debate and this bill extremely important, and I want to thank all members for their participation in this debate. With that, hon. Speaker, I move the bill now be read a second time.
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[The Speaker in the chair.]
Second reading of Bill 5 approved unanimously on a division. [See Votes and Proceedings.]
Hon. A. Petter: I move the bill be referred to a Committee of the Whole House to be considered by agreement now.
The Speaker: We'll ask for leave.
Leave granted.
HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL DAY ACT
The House in committee on Bill 5; T. Stevenson in the chair.
Section 1 approved.
Preamble approved.
Title approved.
Hon. A. Petter: I move that the committee rise and report the bill complete without amendment.
Motion approved.
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The House resumed; the Speaker in the chair.
Bill 5, Holocaust Memorial Day Act, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.
Hon. D. Lovick moved adjournment of the House.
Motion approved.
The House adjourned at 11:59 a.m.
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