Mr. Speaker, in 2009 I personally met with the Canada-Poland Friendship Group in the Polish parliament when I was in Warsaw. The feedback from those meetings indicated that there was a definite willingness to create a bilateral intern exchange program between our parliaments.
Today I rise to bring attention to the creation of the Canada-Poland Youth Internship Society, created for the purpose of establishing a youth parliamentary internship exchange program between Canada and Poland. This internship will offer young Poles a unique first-hand public service experience in the office of a Canadian lawmaker in order to learn about the Canadian parliamentary system of governance, about Canada and Canadians.
Similarly, Canadian youth will get to experience a onc- in-a-lifetime opportunity to work in the Polish parliament.
I would like to thank the membership of the Canada-Poland working group, now the society, for volunteering its time and energy to get this program off the ground. I extend special thanks to our chair, Tony Muszynski; our vice chair, Teresa Berezowski; and members Jerzy Barycki, José Semrau, Ludwik Klimkowski and Danuta Tardif.
I know I can count on all parliamentarians to help work toward building closer political, economic and cultural ties between Canada and Poland.