Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to the organizers and athletes of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games, to the people of Vancouver, Whistler, Richmond, the four First Nations hosts and the blue jacket volunteers, and to all Canadians who watched as Alexandre Bilodeau made history and Joannie Rochette won our hearts.
So many Olympians fulfilled their dreams and so many exceeded our hopes. They inspired a future generation. We must keep pace with them and sustain our investment in our athletes' future.
For 17 days we were all Team Canada. We sang our anthem on subway cars and on street corners. We jumped up as one people when Sidney Crosby scored that wonderful goal. We have showed the world what we are made of and next week at the Paralympics we will do it again.