Hello, everyone.

My name is Hoang. I represent a younger generation of Vietnamese in Toronto and also a part of Canada.

I'm here today to make only one point, which is the date of this bill.

When I came to the Hill today, I came across an article in Embassy news that came out this morning, April 1. I'm going to quote a sentence written in this article about Bill S-219, and the quote comes from the Conservative member, Mark Adler. The quote says, “This is a historical fact that we’re talking about here..”. He went on to say that “the historical fact is there was an invasion. There were two separate countries in 1975, and there was an invasion.”

As I said, I was born after the war, and, of course, I didn't witness the war. For me, the history comes from history books. I was taught by some of the well-known professors here, for example, Professor Gabriel Kolko, from York University in Canada, who has written a book about the Vietnamese war called Anatomy of a War. It's about the Vietnamese war, from 1940 to 1975.

I'm going to read one sentence that I learned from this book: “South Vietnam is a geographic expression only for the sake of convenience” because legally Vietnam, south of the 17th parallel, under the Geneva Accords of 1954, was an integral part of one nation, transitionally divided prior to reunification.

They key word here is “reunification”, ladies and gentlemen. April 30, 1975 is the day that reunited Vietnam. April 30, 1975 is not the day that commemorates refugees from Vietnam coming to Canada. That is one thing I want to make clear. This is what I learned from university, from textbooks. my point today is very clear: The day to commemorate the Vietnamese refugees in Canada should be July 27, 1979. April 30 is the day that reunited Vietnam, my country.

Thank you very much for your time.

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