Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): Sarah Fischer, Director of Communications for the Conservative Party of Canada, posted on Twitter:

It’s just a passport

It’s just a symbol

They’re only words

Only beliefs held by the few

Only traditions that no longer matter

It’s just history

Milan Kundera wrote:

The first step in liquidating a people . . . is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture, its history. Then have somebody write new books, manufacture a new culture, invent a new history. Before long the nation will begin to forget what it is and what it was.

The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.

Leader, the mayor of Terry Fox’s hometown of Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, said yesterday:

Whoever made the decision to remove Terry Fox from Canadian passports needs to give their head a shake. Our country needs more Terry Fox, not less.

I certainly agree with those words. I also agree, leader, with the Royal Canadian Legion statement condemning the removal of an image of the Vimy Memorial from our passports. They said it was, “. . . to put it bluntly, a poor decision,” leader.

This is the result of a government that has a lack of respect for Canadians and Canada’s history, and the heroes and heroines of the past who have made our country great. They have no moral compass.

Leader, why did the Trudeau government make it a priority to erase images of our country from our passports?