Hon. Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu: Colleagues, it moves me deeply to speak about a subject that differs from my usual focus. I feel this is an important part of respecting our duty to remember.

Last week, June 6 marked a key date in our country’s history. That day commemorates a bold and decisive military operation. On June 6, 1944, Allied armed forces launched an offensive on the beaches of Normandy, a battle that changed the course of the Second World War.

At the time, France was occupied and the whole of Europe was living under the terrifying threat of the Nazi regime. The whole world held its breath awaiting the actions of one man.

Some 79 years ago, our soldiers — mostly young men, some scarcely more than boys — risked their lives with unrivalled bravery. They fought for their homeland, of course, but even more importantly, they fought to defend the values of democracy and human rights and to help Europe and the Allies free themselves from Nazi oppression.

On the eve of June 6, 1944, these 130,000 brothers in arms landed on the beaches of Normandy to open a new front in Europe. These soldiers drew their courage from their sense of duty to face the firepower of new German machine guns. However, that duty came at a cost. Many of those soldiers did not return from the beaches of Normandy. On the evening of June 6, 1944, the Allies mourned the death of 10,500 soldiers, including 1,000 Canadian soldiers, on Omaha Beach and Juno Beach.

These soldiers gave their lives to liberate Europe. Their sacrifices deserve our eternal respect.

I would like to share with you the poignant testimony of Samuel Fuller, an American solder who participated in the landing. This is what he said:

The day was starting to break and we could just barely see the coastline through the fog. We left the ship and got into the landing craft, which carried us toward the beach. I was in the 16th Regiment, 3rd Battalion, Company K. . . . The water was rough and soldiers were seasick. We were in the third assault wave. The closer we got to land, the less we could see — Smoke, fog, explosions . . . . It was hell. But that was just the beginning. . . . The whole scene was straight out of Dante’s inferno. The ocean ran red with blood and body parts were being tossed on the waves. My sergeant and I managed to get to a sandbar, but we could not find any bomb holes in which to take shelter from the gunfire. That is when everything started to slowly fall apart. Air support missed the beach and was bombing inland. We had nothing to protect ourselves with but the bodies of fallen soldiers. We tried to figure out where the mortar fire was coming from that was tearing up the beach. The sergeant was surprised by the power and quality of the enemy fire, and he told me that we were facing seasoned soldiers.

Rather than staying on the beach for 25 minutes as planned, we were trapped there for three hours under enemy fire. It wasn’t until 9:30 a.m. that we managed to open a breach in the beach defences . . . it was a nightmare.

Honourable senators, in memory of those soldiers, I want to sincerely commend their courage and recognize their sacrifices.

Let’s promise never to forget those who gave their lives for our freedom. Today, history seems to be repeating itself with the war that is raging in Ukraine, a country that is fighting for its freedom just as those soldiers fought for ours on June 6, 1944.

Thank you.

[English]

Hon. Pierre J. Dalphond, pursuant to notice of June 8, 2023, moved:

That the Senate acknowledge that Russian political prisoner Vladimir Kara-Murza — recipient of the Václav Havel Human Rights Prize, a Senior Fellow of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, and a friend of the Parliament of Canada — is an internationally recognized champion for human rights and democracy, whose wrongful imprisonment for dissenting against the unjust war in Ukraine is emblematic of thousands of political prisoners in Russia and around the world; and

That the Senate resolve to bestow the title “honorary Canadian citizen” on Vladimir Kara-Murza and call for his immediate release.

He said: Honourable senators, I rise to co-propose that the Senate join with the House of Commons’ unanimous vote last week to grant honorary Canadian citizenship to Russian political prisoner Vladimir Kara-Murza. Thank you to Senators Housakos, Omidvar, Miville-Dechêne and Patterson (Ontario) for your collaborative efforts towards this goal.

As this motion states, Vladimir Kara-Murza is an internationally recognized champion for human rights and democracy. He is a recipient of the Václav Havel Human Rights Prize and a Senior Fellow of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights in Montreal. Mr. Kara-Murza’s wrongful imprisonment for dissenting against the unjust war in Ukraine is emblematic of thousands of political prisoners in Russia and around the world.

After surviving two assassination attempts, Mr. Kara-Murza is currently serving a 25-year sentence in Russia imposed further to a mockery of a trial held after he courageously returned to his homeland last year.

Senators, the Parliament of Canada must stand with such a hero and a friend of Canada. Mr. Kara-Murza visited our Parliament twice. In 2016, he appeared before the Senate Foreign Affairs and International Trade Committee to urge the adoption of the Sergei Magnitsky Law named after another victim of the Putin regime, which became law in 2017.

In 2019, Mr. Kara-Murza assisted the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, alongside the Honourable Irwin Cotler, former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, in relation to the human rights situation in Russia.

Vladimir’s spouse Evgenia Kara-Murza is the Advocacy Coordinator of the Free Russia Foundation. She assisted the same House committee last October in relation to a study of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. She told MPs that 19,335 people have been arbitrarily detained in Russia since February 2022, the beginning of the war in Ukraine.

That same week Ms. Kara-Murza was a guest of this chamber. Many of us had the great honour of speaking with her. This year, senators have spoken of Vladimir Kara-Murza’s situation in this chamber, including Senators Boehm, McPhedran and Gold.

[Translation]

Last April, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Honourable Mélanie Joly, condemned the guilty verdict of Vladimir Kara‑Murza. She stated, and I quote:

Mr. Kara-Murza stands as a symbol of the courageous and principled defence of democratic values and human rights. Russia’s attempts to silence people of conscience only makes their voices more powerful.

At the beginning of the month, Senator Omidvar co-led a press conference with the Honourable Irwin Cotler and a group of parliamentarians, including Senator Miville-Dechêne and myself, to establish the basis for this motion. If Mr. Kara-Murza is aware of our efforts, he must know that his friends, the Honourable Irwin Cotler, Bill Browder, Brandon Silver and many others tirelessly defended his cause until today.

I also want to mention a letter of support for this initiative by the League for Human Rights, an agency of B’nai Brith Canada. I will quote an excerpt from this letter:

Kara-Murza is a beacon of hope for a population that is increasingly oppressed by Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian regime, which seeks to crush any dissidence while continuing its criminal war against its neighbour, Ukraine.

Honourable senators, honorary Canadian citizenship is an honour rarely bestowed by Parliament. It is done through a motion of the House of Commons and the Senate. Among the few who have received this honour in the past are heroes of humanity, such as Raoul Wallenberg, Nelson Mandela and Malala Yousafzai.

[English]

On June 8, last Thursday, Conservative MP Tom Kmiec rose and found unanimous consent of elected members of Parliament to a motion to confer honorary citizenship on Vladimir Kara‑Murza and to call on the Russian Federation to set him free.

By adopting the motion before us, the Senate of Canada will join the other place in showing the world that the Parliament of Canada stands up for our friends and for political prisoners around the world. With this motion, let us speak with a united voice for freedom and justice for Vladimir Kara-Murza. Let us send a powerful message to dissenters against tyranny who are imprisoned worldwide, “In Canada, you are not forgotten.”

Last year, Mr. Kara-Murza’s spouse, Evgenia, received the Václav Havel Human Rights Prize on her husband’s behalf, which was awarded by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. In a statement she read on his behalf, Mr. Kara-Murza dedicated the prize to the many thousands of Russians jailed for speaking out against the war who chose not to remain “. . . silent in the face of this atrocity, even at the cost of personal freedom.”

He added:

. . . I look forward to . . . when a peaceful, democratic and Putin-free Russia returns to this Assembly and to this Council; and when we can finally start building that whole, free and peaceful Europe we all want to see. Even today, in the darkest of hours, I firmly believe that time will come.

Senators, with this motion, let us make those brave words of an honorary Canadian citizen. Let us honour Vladimir Kara-Murza, a star of hope in the Russian sky, and stand with him in the hour of his struggle. I invite senators to adopt this motion. Thank you, meegwetch.