Mr. Speaker, three young Canadians did us proud last summer at the 2011 National Geographic World Championship held in California.
Alexander Cohen, a student at Ashbury College in Ottawa—Vanier, and his teammates, Aoife O'Leary of Surrey, B.C. and Alejandro Torres-Lopez of North Vancouver, won the silver medal to Russia's gold and Vietnam's bronze.
The National Geographic World Championship, hosted by Alex Trebek, is a two-day international geography competition held every two years. Seventeen teams of geography students from around the globe met to take part in this tournament. After three years of being in the top three of the Great Canadian Geography Challenge, Alexander placed first this year and made the Canadian team for the championship.
Today Alex turns 16. I wish him a happy birthday. May his gift this year be to win the gold for Canada. We are proud of him.