In a speech that would have made Ronald Reagan proud, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper called communism “evil.”

Harper said, “Evil comes in many forms and seems to reinvent itself time and again. But whatever it calls itself — Nazism, Marxist-Leninism, today, terrorism — they all have one thing in common: the destruction, the end of human liberty.”

The Prime Minister further commented:

During the 20th century, communism’s poisonous ideology and ruthless practices slowly bled into countries around the world, on almost every continent. The result was catastrophic. More than 100 million souls were lost — an almost incomprehensible number….We feel this pain so acutely because nearly one quarter of all Canadians were either held captive by communism’s chains or are the sons and daughters of those who were.

Harper went on to praise those who fled communist countries and made Canada their home. He said, “Instead of communism’s grim determinism, they found Canadian opportunity.”

Harper gave this speech to Tribute to Liberty, an organization that is raising money to erect a memorial to the victims of communism on a plot of land near the Supreme Court of Canada in Ottawa.