Thank you, Chair.
I'm really thankful to my colleagues for supporting this motion. The last 125 days have been very heavy on all of us. It has not been easy for me, as a mother, to see all the horrific pictures coming from there. In the last 125 days, we have lost close to 30,000 innocent lives, many of them children and women.
I've been having meetings with my constituents and hearing from a lot of people. On Friday I hosted a town hall in my riding, and many people came all the way from different parts of Ontario to talk about their loved ones trapped in Gaza, who do not have anything to eat. They don't have drinking water. It's a humanitarian crisis, and I think Canada has always stood for making sure that we build peace. It's very important that we schedule this meeting as soon as possible because so many Canadians are looking to us to get their loved ones out of that humanitarian crisis.
I've heard from grandparents who have lost their children. Their grandchildren are without parents, so they have custody and really want to bring them here because there is no one to look after them. Thousands of people are housed in UNRWA schools—14,000 to 15,000, on average—and using one washroom. That's what life is like for people living in Gaza. There are many people who have children over the age of 24 trapped there. They have siblings trapped there. Some people, I have heard, have lost their siblings, and their kids are with their mother. There's no one to look after them. It's very important that we get people who are trapped there here so they can be reunited with their loved ones and we can bring peace to them.
I would request that this meeting be scheduled, because it's a time-sensitive issue. Every day, every second, people are being killed in that area, so it's very important that we schedule this meeting as soon as possible so we can hear from the minister what efforts are being made to make sure we get to the people trapped there and reunite them with their loved ones.