Mr. Speaker, yesterday I had the pleasure of honouring many women volunteers from my riding of Ahuntsic at my annual breakfast on the occasion of International Women's Day.
In addition, I paid tribute to six exceptional women during the presentation organized in conjunction with the Ahuntsic-Cartierville CEDC, Concertation-Femme and the Maison Fleury to further commemorate this day. These six caring and active women successfully returned to school and entered the labour market. They are Perla Marrugo Del Rosar, Liping Tian, Rajaa Abou Assi, Annie Gosselin, Cornelia Turturea and Anna Laskowska. They came from the four corners of the earth and, armed with courage and tenacity, they overcame small and large obstacles to integration. They dared to dream and to make those dreams come true, despite those obstacles.
That proves once again that education is the key to many successes.
Allow me to finish with a Congolese proverb, “When you educate a man you are educating one individual, but when you educate a woman you are educating a society”.
I wish everyone a happy International Women's Day.