Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to salute in this House the decision recently made by UNESCO to establish its new institute for statistics in Montreal. The institute will be the first of eight UNESCO units to be located in North America.
The presence of this institute in Montreal will have an economic impact of some $60 million over 10 years. Some thirty jobs will be created within the next year, and the number of employees could quickly double.
Our Minister of Foreign Affairs said that “the dynamic character of Montreal and its many research centres, complete with state-of-the-art facilities, will prove to be a crucial factor in the development and growth of UNESCO's new institute”.
This project also received the support of the Friendship Group of Parliamentarians for UNESCO, which believes that the establishment of this institute could help substantially raise UNESCO's profile in Canada and North America, while also ensuring it desirable international influence.