Mr. Speaker, earlier in my comments I said that I had enormous support from many Canadians. Twenty-three committees have supported me so far. For the record they are: Association for Learning and Preserving of the History of WWII in Asia, ALPHA; Belarusan Canadian Coordinating Committee; Buddhist Communities of Greater Toronto; Canadian Arab Federation; Canadian Islamic Congress; Canadian Ukrainian Immigrant Aid Society; Council of the Muslim Community of Canada; Cypriot Canadian Federation; Federation of Associations of Canadians Tamils; Federation of Canadian Turkish Associations; Hellenic Canadian Congress; Hellenic Committee for Human Rights and National Issues: Latvian National Federation of Canada; National Association of Canadians with Origins in India; National Federation of Pakistani Canadians; Palestine Heritage Canada; Pan African Movement of Canada; Serbian National Shield Society of Canada; Slovenian National Federation; Toronto Kurdish Community and Information Centre; Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association; Ukrainian Canadian Congress; Ukrainian National Federation of Canada; and Ukrainian Women's Organization of Canada.
Two weeks ago, I had the honour of enlisting the support of the Armenian General Benevolent Union headed Mr. Danny Boyajan, which made my support at 23.
I will read a couple of lines from a letter which I received from the Federation of Canadian Turkish Associations. It reads:
The Federation urges the Canadian government to consider the establishment of a broadly based museum or exhibit on genocide that is inclusive of the realities of all ethnocultural communities.
It goes on to say:
Such a process should be publicly determined and accountable to the system.
I whole-heartedly agree with this.
I also have a general letter of support from a group of Canadians called Canadians for a Genocide Museum. They say that their 24-member association represents a wide multicultural group and that they whole-heartedly support the passing of Bill C-224, an act to establish by the beginning of the 21st century a museum exhibit to recognize crimes against humanity. As members can see, the support for this bill is enormous.
I had the chance to go to the Ukrainian church on the weekend for a commemoration. It was the 66th anniversary of the famine genocide on the Ukrainian population which took place in 1933. I was very moved to see young Canadians lighting candles for each of the nationalities I mentioned earlier that had suffered atrocities.
Further, on November 18 I asked a question in the House of Commons to the Minister of Canadian Heritage. In reply, she said:
Mr. Speaker, I would first like to thank the member for Brampton Centre who has done an incredible job getting together 22 organizations from across the country to work on this very important issue.
I hope that all members of the House will be here to speak in support of private member's bill, Bill C-224, which will be debated in the House on November 30.
I thank the minister for her support. I would like to save a few minutes at the end of the debate for my final comments.