Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. I also hope that he will experience what my wife and I are experiencing now and will soon experience with our second child, at least we hope so. We do not know how much time it may take.
I think that a bill like this one is a small step, like the tax credit for expenses in connection with an international adoption. I think that this is only fair. We cannot say that we have been going through a demographic decline for at least three generations and that we welcome immigrants with open arms, without granting some sort of collective support when parents, citizens of Quebec and Canada, wish to go and seek a child abroad.
We are not asking the population to take our place as adoptive parents or to do the work in our place, but things should be made easier where possible. There will actually be more and more parents in this situation, who will be opting for international adoption. It is really a nice way of ensuring the integration of citizens in our society for the future.
I do not know how it works in the rest of Canada, but I know that there are agencies. In Quebec, there are agencies recognized by the Secrétariat à l'adoption internationale. These agencies are properly accredited and they help prepare files. They do not take the place of the people, but they endorse files and also handle the procedures for sending them, depending on particular ties with certain countries. I think there are agencies in Ontario. In the rest of Canada, I do not know. These agencies deal with particular countries. If someone is looking at Asia, Latin America or Europe, there are specialized agencies that have established a legal network, of course, and this facilitates the process.
This is an experience which I keenly hope the member will have. If he wishes, I will get some information for the rest of Canada. I will be pleased to do this for him, and I hope he gets to enjoy this tremendous experience.
For the past eight years, my wife and I have been experiencing this with Rosalie and we are getting ready to experience it again with our little boy, who is on the way. It is a parental experience, a human experience, an extraordinary life experience.
Being a parent is already extraordinary, but going through this experience, after months and months of waiting, is quite fabulous, as far as my wife and I are concerned.