Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Yes, Italians helped build Canada, but Canada was built by immigrants. Therefore, I do not believe we should target the Italian community in particular. This bill is doing justice to a community that deserves it. As I was saying in my comments, we have apologized to the Japanese and the Chinese, but there are other communities that expect to receive apologies as well. Is the community united? Yes. Is there 100% unanimity? No. However, I believe it is about 95%.
You will be hearing presentations from other Italian community organizations. In fact, in all the work that has been done in the past by the National Congress of Italian-Canadians, all of the major Italian Canadian organizations in Canada were included. Therefore, on the topic of divisions, I do not see any. There are always particular individuals who have difficulties. That is true even in Parliament, when there are debates between the parties. I believe this is normal. Several Conservatives supported the bill, but I think that perhaps some of them do not understand what happened. In fact, the Conservatives have always led the way in offering official apologies.