OTTAWA: A Tibetan living Buddha on Monday compared the emancipation of serfs in Tibet 50 years ago to the abolition of slavery in the United States in 1862, saying the two were of similar significance.

"Both are milestones in the history of human rights," Shingtsa Tenzinchodrak, a living Buddha of the Kagyu sect, said at a meeting with Peter Milliken, speaker of the Canadian House of Commons.

The Tibetan autonomous region people's congress, the regional legislature, endorsed a bill on Jan 19, 2009 to designate March 28 as an annual Serfs' Emancipation Day, to mark the date on which about 1 million serfs in the region were freed 50 years ago.