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House Hansard - 199

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 17, 2023 02:00PM
Context: House Hansard - 199 - May/17/23
Mr. Yvan Baker (Etobicoke Centre, Lib.)
  • May/17/23 2:27:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Crimean Tatars are the indigenous people of Crimea. On May 18, 1944, the Soviet Union began the “Sürgünlik”, which was the mass deportation of the Crimean Tatars. This was meant to destroy the Crimean Tatar people. The Sürgünlik led to hundreds of thousands of Crimean Tatars being deported and tens of thousands dying en route and afterward. It was a genocide. On May 18 last year, here in this House, I had the honour to introduce a motion that received unanimous consent to declare May 18 as a day of commemoration and to recognize that the Sürgünlik was a genocide. Today, on Parliament Hill, with leaders of the Crimean Tatar community, we commemorated this genocide. Unfortunately, as we speak, history is repeating itself. Russia invaded Crimea in 2014. Since then, Crimean Tatars have once again faced human rights abuses at the hands of the Russian regime, just as they did during the deportation and genocide. Today, let us honour the victims by ensuring that Crimea is liberated from Russia's oppression and becomes part of Ukraine again, so that Crimean Tatars and all Ukrainian people can live in freedom in their homeland once again.
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