I’ll be sharing my time with the members from Orléans, Kingston and the Islands, and Don Valley West.

I want to begin by offering my condolences to the family of Adi Vital-Kaploun, with family ties to Ottawa. In fact, I want to offer my condolences to all the families that are impacted by this senseless violence and attack on October 7. There are not many degrees of separation in families who are impacted by this. I can’t imagine people’s grief.

The attack by Hamas on innocent civilians—moms and dads, children, brothers and sisters, friends, grandparents—was deliberately brutal and barbaric, I find, in a way that is unspeakable. It’s hard to find the words of truly how inhuman the attack was.

Israel has a right to defend itself against this terror. Since October 7, I have had those images of those families in my head and in the pit of my stomach. It’s not going away. The intent of Hamas was to spread terror. That’s why we call them terrorists. That’s not disputable. It’s hate—hate that doesn’t care about innocent lives, no matter where they live, in Israel or in Gaza. The attacks were brutal to stoke anger, to provoke a response, to broaden the conflict.

Here’s the thing: It’s not just about broadening the conflict in the Middle East, and not just about broadening the conflict in our world. It’s about broadening the conflict in our communities. They seek to divide us, to pit one against the other.

I’ve spoken to many in my community: people of faith, people not of faith, Jews, Muslims, Christians. I spoke to my kids. They’re all worried about the rise of hate, the rise of anti-Semitism, the rise of Islamophobia. People are anxious in our communities. They’re worried—all of us, no matter who we are; we can feel it. We’re worried about the targeting of communities. Our job is to keep us together, is to bring us together, is to find the commonalities that we all have in our communities.

The thing with conflict and war is, like they always say, truth is the first casualty. That’s going to make this really hard, but we have to find a way to bring people together about the thing that I think we all agree on in here and outside of here, which is protecting innocent lives. That’s important, no matter where they live. I think we can all agree on that.

I saw the amendment this morning—the number of amendments—and I had one that I wanted to suggest. As a province, in the past and right now, when there have been areas in conflict—in Ukraine, in Lebanon—when there have been calamities and casualties in this world, we’ve found a way to respond. As a government, we found a way to respond, to find some way to contribute to people’s security and safety, to try to meet their needs. I would like to put an amendment forward like that. I would like the government to consider that. I think we need to send that sign, that we’re about protecting innocent lives, wherever they live.

Now, I don’t have too much time left, because I would like to share my time with my colleagues here. I wish I had some more time to talk about this. I think we need to think about how we are, in here, and how we work together so that we can keep our communities together. We have to be an example. I think we can do it; there have been a few moments recently when I’ve been very worried about that, and I just want to leave you with that thought.