Please read the following statement from Elizabeth May, MP for Saanich–Gulf Islands and Leader of the Green Party of Canada, recognising Emancipation Day:
“Canadians are too often in ignorance of Canada’s role in the slave trade in the loss of millions of lives of Africans stolen and enslaved to serve the economic growth of the British Empire. In 2021 Canada’s Parliament marked August 1 as Emancipation Day. It was on August 1, 1834 that the British Parliament, decades before the US, made slavery illegal.
The abolitionist campaigns and the leadership of MP William Wilberforce contain lessons for social justice movements today. Anti-black racism remains a legacy of injustice that has its origins in this deeply immoral and horrific period. To this day, millions of human beings around the world live in conditions of forced labour, victims of human trafficking and enslavement. We must redress the wrongs of the past and ensure every human being lives in freedom and dignity.”