Mr. Speaker, on November 20 a campaign was started in Winnipeg to support our troops in Afghanistan. It is not about the latest weapons or armoured vehicles. It is about pillows.
This campaign was created as a memorial to Corporal James Hayward Arnal, a 25-year-old resident of Saint Boniface who was killed on July 18, 2008 while serving in Afghanistan.
His passing deeply touched my community and all who knew him. I had worked alongside his father for many years as his partner on the Winnipeg Police Service and I know just how terribly his family misses him.
Corporal Arnal, who was the 88th Canadian soldier killed in the Afghan conflict, kept a travel-size pillow with him throughout his mission.
The goal of the campaign is to provide a similar travel-size pillow to each Canadian soldier serving in Afghanistan. The first shipment will be accompanied by Corporal Arnal's mother, Wendy Hayward, to Trenton, Ontario in December. The pillows will be shipped from there to Afghanistan in time for Christmas.
Donations can be made online at pillowsfortroops.com. Please help to make our Canadian heroes a little more comfortable as they fight to help keep us all safer.