Hon. Peter Harder: Honourable senators, I rise today to pay tribute to my grandparents: Peter and Elizabeth Tiessen and the Reverend Abram and Anna Harder.

Colleagues may remember that in May 2019, I spoke on the centenary of the order-in-council which prevented my grandparents, parents, their siblings and thousands of other Mennonites who had applied to come to Canada from leaving the Soviet Union. In the words of the order-in-council: “. . . they are not likely to become readily assimilated or assume the duties and responsibilities of Canadian citizenship . . . .”

Then, in June 2022, I spoke on the centenary of a much happier occasion, when a newly elected government in Canada rescinded that order. As a result, about 20,000 people — one sixth of the Russian Mennonite population — were able to leave the Soviet Union for Canada in what became known as the Mennonite exodus. Today, I arise to celebrate that centenary.

It was 100 years ago this month when the Tiessen and then the Harder families left the Lichtenau railway station with all their belongings. The train consisted of over 50 freight cars with well over 20 people in each car — all from the villages from which they came. It was a momentous departure.

As the last car passed through the famous “Iron Gate” at the Soviet border, as with one voice, the song “Now Thank We All Our God” could be heard from all of the cars in four-part harmony.

The Harder family departed from Southampton, crossing the Atlantic Ocean on the SS Empress of France. Sailing up the St. Lawrence River, Grandfather Harder wrote the following in his journal:

At long last my years of hoping and dreaming are about to be fulfilled. A few more hours of sailing and we will touch Canadian soil in Quebec. Today is my birthday. I am 45 years of age, and I call out with the words of the Psalmist, “And I will walk in liberty, for I seek Thy precepts” (Ps 119:45). On the day of my birth, my mother placed me into a cradle in Kleefeld, province of Taurien, Russia. Today the waves of fate gently rock me unto the shores of [North] America. Where will I find a home for myself and my large family? Where shall we find a home for our daily pursuits? How many days will there be for me in this strange land? With mixed feelings and emotions, and yet with deep conviction that I have done the right thing, I cry out with the words, “My God, my hope is in Thee.”

So, 100 years later, this youngest grandchild can rise in this chamber and say, with the gratitude of generations, “Thank you. You did indeed do the right thing.”

As with all immigration and migration stories, this could not have been done without the support of co-religionists in Canada who lobbied the Government of Canada to allow this migration, and who negotiated a large “travel loan” from the Canadian Pacific Railway to pay for the expenses of travel, as well as the many Mennonite families — first in Kitchener-Waterloo and later in Manitoba — who welcomed my Tiessen and Harder families into their homes. This August, the grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren of Abram and Anna Harder will meet in Vineland, Ontario, to share our story and to give thanks.

I speak today so that we may all redouble our efforts to make Canada an ongoing beacon of protection for refugees, a welcoming home for immigrants, a celebration of pluralism and a guard against falsehoods and other claims of racial or religious discrimination.