Mr. Speaker, I was thrilled to be at the opening ceremonies of the Canada Winter Games this past weekend in Whitehorse.
It was inspirational to see Larry Smith there as the chair of the Games and Piers McDonald as the president of the host committee. I congratulate them and the 4,100 volunteers who are there in Whitehorse right now helping all the people.
It was inspirational to see those young athletes, who we know will own the podium in 2010 in Vancouver.
It was unfortunate, however, that the sport minister for the federal government was unable to be there in order to hear the committed and urgent pleas by provincial and territorial ministers for sport infrastructure and physical activity infrastructure. That is what we as a government had promised them previously.