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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 240

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 26, 2023 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 240 - Oct/26/23
Ms. Emmanuella Lambropoulos (Saint-Laurent, Lib.)
  • Oct/26/23 2:10:09 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, on October 28, Greeks from across Canada and around the world will be celebrating the famous Oxi Day. Oxi is the Greek word for “no”. The Greek prime minister, Ioannis Metaxas, gave that as an answer to an ultimatum from Benito Mussolini on October 28, 1940, when he asked Greece to allow the Axis forces to enter and occupy certain strategic locations or to go to war. The rejection of this ultimatum led to the Axis forces descending on Greece, which they expected to fall quickly, but the Greek resistance pushed Italy back within a month and forced Hitler to change his plans, delaying his invasion of Russia by at least two months. Franklin Roosevelt said that when the entire world lost all hope, the Greek people dared to question the invincibility of the Nazis, raising against it the proud spirit of freedom. Without Greece or the big three countries of the U.S., Great Britain and Russia, Hitler's powerful war machine probably would have won the war, and the world we know today would have been a very different place. [Member spoke in Greek] [English]
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