Mr. Chair, I know the events and the amount of work that the member is doing in his constituency. I know that his office is probably one of the busiest offices right now, with the immigration cases happening out of the Philippines and that he will be able to share with us that the work that has been done.
We need to be able to extend the time until December 31. I do hope that the Prime Minister comes into this House tomorrow and says, “The 31st it is”, because at the time of Christmas, the time of the spirit of giving and receiving, Canadians will open not only their wallets but their hearts. The little children will tell their parents, “Don't buy me a gift. Let's give a contribution to the typhoon relief efforts in the Philippines”.
For the record, I do want to share with my colleague two things. One is that when the tsunami hit, we, when we were the government, immediately responded, and we had an extra 13 staff in Colombo.
When Muzaffarabad happened a year later, we responded again, and we had an extra five or six staff in Islamabad.
Going back to 2001, when the earthquake happened in Gujarat, in India, immediately the government of the day, the Liberal government, responded by saying, “We are matching dollar for dollar”, and we brought more staff into India, so there is a history here of governments of Canada doing the right thing.
I just hope that the government of the day will respond in the same way that the Liberal government responded by ensuring that we get extra staff and that we extend until December 31 all the matching efforts that the community does in co-operation with registered entities that the government recognizes.