Sara Hossain, Marguerite Barankitse and Teresita Quintos Deles, let me express our sincerest gratitude for your bravery, courage and work. On a daily basis, you risk your reputation, your own safety and that of your families. You continue to work in an ever-increasingly dangerous situation. We pray that your energies will be renewed, knowing you have new friends here in the parliamentary committee.
Chair, if you'd also allow me, I'd like to say a sincere thank you to Anita Vandenbeld, Cheryl Hardcastle, David Anderson, Peter Fragiskatos, Iqra Khalid and Marwan Tabbara.
Seven years ago, we began the process of trying to champion this. Certainly there was no objection to that in the last Parliament. However, because human rights is what it is, there were so many issues that we never got to it. I want to say thank you to my colleagues all around the room for making this possible. It's one of the warmest and rewarding days of my career.
I also would like to say thank you to our clerk and research staff, who had no model to follow but made this a special and dignified event, one that's worthy of the sacrifice of the honourees and the number of people they save on a regular basis.
Finally, whether it's in Bangladesh, Burundi, the Philippines or any other place where human rights are violated and it's allowed to continue, let the human rights defenders of the globe know that they have friends here in this committee, and let the perpetrators know that, to the best of our abilities, this committee will also expose their deeds.
Again, thank you very much.
Thank you, Chair.