Mr. Speaker, I stand today to present a petition on behalf of the over 100,000 volunteer firefighters across this country. I have in my own riding 50 different volunteer fire departments, including Little Dover, Mulgrave, Glace Bay--I will not name them all, but I would like to mention some--Manitou, Whycogomah, Blues Mills, Bateston, Cheticamp, Judique, Port Hastings, East Bay, Howick Centre, and St. Peter's. That is about a quarter of them. All those different departments share one thing: they are there to serve and protect the people of their communities. They do this without any compensation. They do this a great deal of the time at their own expense.
There are over 1,200 signatures on this petition. These people believe that these volunteers deserve some type of recognition and compensation from the government and hopefully that will move forward. There are private members' bills in this regard. Hopefully, as the list of private members' business moves along, a bill acknowledging the work these volunteer firefighters do will be presented. The intent of this petition is to support that principle.
With all due respect to volunteer firefighters right across this country, I am very proud to present this petition.