Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I should congratulate you on your new appointment and to the new Minister, David Krutko.

Mr. Speaker, this Sunday, June 6, 2004, communities around Canada and around the world, including Yellowknife, will be commemorating the 60th anniversary of D-Day, the day that marked the beginning of the end of World War II. In honour of that, I would like to just share with you parts of an article from CBC reporter Robin Rowland, which gives a very good idea of what the Canadian soldiers had to experience on this day.

Mr. Speaker, the sun was just coming up over the Normandy coast at about 5:00 a.m. on June 6, 1944, D-Day. The Allied navies -- Canadian, British and American -- had just brought a huge invasion fleet from England to France in total darkness. For men on the ships, first light showed the black shapes of other nearby vessels. For the Germans on shore, the dawn revealed a vast armada poised to invade occupied France.

The military planners had given Canada a measured role on D-Day: to take one of the five designated beaches where Allied forces were to land to begin the liberation of Europe from Nazi Germany. The Americans had Utah and Omaha beaches in the west, then came the British at Gold, then the Canadians at Juno Beach and finally the British at Sword on the east.

The greatest seaborne invasion in history was aimed at 80 kilometres of mostly flat, sandy beach along the Normandy coast, west of the Seine River, east of the jutting Cotentin Peninsula. Canada's objective was right in the middle.

There were about 155,000 soldiers, 5,000 ships and landing craft, 50,000 vehicles and 11,000 planes set for the coming battle. For Canada, 14,000 soldiers were to land on the beaches; another 450 were to drop behind enemy lines by parachute or glider. The Royal Canadian Navy supplied ships and about 10,000 sailors, Lancaster bombers and Spitfire fighters from the Royal Canadian Air Force supported the invasion.

The Canadians who landed on Juno Beach were part of the British Second Army under the command of British Lieutenant General Miles Dempsey, who had served in North Africa and Italy with overall British commander Bernard Montgomery.

Mr. Speaker, may I seek unanimous consent to complete my statement? Thank you.