Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize National Volunteer Week, a week in appreciation of the millions of Canadians from across the country who volunteer. In fact, 12.5 million Canadians give 2.1 billion hours of their time to volunteer each year. This is equivalent to over one million full-time jobs.
Our government fully recognizes the invaluable contributions volunteers make to our communities and to our country. That is why we are creating a new Prime Minister's award for volunteerism and why we added $10 million to the new horizons for seniors program to support projects that help seniors mentor the next generation.
I want to give a great big thanks to the local volunteers throughout my constituency of West Nova and to the volunteers across the country. I thank them for coaching our sports team, for collecting donations for important causes and for cleaning up our local parks. I thank them for making Canada a better place to live.