Thank you, Madam Speaker. It's ironic that on Friday we had a debate and agreed on a declaration of non-violence, especially non-violence of men towards women, Madam Speaker, and today is St. Valentine's Day.
St. Valentine's Day is when we are supposed to show love to our spouses, mates and partners, and to recognize them as life-long friends. But it made me think on the way to work today, Madam Speaker, that so often we find love and tragedy go hand in hand because St. Valentine was one of these guys that got bumped off. That's how you become a martre, you die with what you believe in. By helping a whole bunch of Christians against the nasty Romans, he became a saint. We remember him on days like this because he died for what he believed in, but died violently.
Madam Speaker, today I was also thinking on the way to work that in 1929 one of the very famous dates in American history was the St. Valentine's Day massacre, when Al Capone, who was very heavy into the bootlegging business -- not cigarettes, but the other stuff --
---Laughter
...dressed all his hoodlums up in the uniforms of the Chicago police, found unarmed members of the rival gang of Bugsy Malone and lined them up inside a garage and shot them all. What a way to remember St. Valentine's Day, this irony of violence and love among people.
Today, perhaps, it will give us a chance to reflect, Madam Speaker, that not only are we talking about domestic peace and harmony with the partner we've chosen to live with, but in a wider sense the society which we would like to have as a lawful society where we respect the laws we've all agreed to live under. That, to me, would be a wonderful end, if you like, of this debate we had on Friday. Thank you, Madam Speaker.
---Applause.