The power of the clergy is enormous, and getting together sends a loud and a potent signal that we are together. Going back to the fateful day of September 11, what we did here as a community was that all the faith leaders got together and announced publicly, at a time when the attack against the Muslim community was probably the most acute in my recent memory, that an attack on one religious community is an attack on all religious communities. That's been the motif that's working here in the national capital area. That message has generated a spirit of co-operation. I would be deluding you if I said that it involves everybody, but certainly it's not exceptional to see leaders of different faith communities here working together.
After the attack in Quebec, one of the things that we wanted to do was send the message of inclusivity. We had a blood drive in December that involved all of the faith communities, which now hopefully is going to be an annual thing, with the Christian, Muslim, and Jewish communities getting together to promote this in all of their religious quarters. We all get together, so Muslims, Jews, and Christians are all interacting. They're all spilling the same red blood into nice pouches that are going to help other people of whatever faith, or even no faith.
These types of creative things—and there's no shortage of them—are certainly going to help. The more we build positivity, the more the naysayers and the negatives become isolated and even more, shall we say, distinguished by their not being part of the Canadian mosaic.