Mr. Chair, I will be sharing my time with my colleague, the member for Don Valley West.
It is with a heavy heart that I rise here this evening to talk about the great humanitarian tragedy that has occurred in the Philippines.
It has been well articulated so far, how many people have been killed and how many are now homeless. It has also been well enunciated, both by members on this side and on the opposite side, about the great human tragedy we have been witnessing in the Philippines. From the jaws of that great tragedy, we have seen the best of Canada. A lot of people have spoken about the great things many Canadians have been doing.
The riding of York Centre, the riding I am so fortunate to represent, is a very ethnocultural riding. We boast one of the largest Filipino communities of any riding in the country. Over the past couple of weeks, we have been working closely with the Filipino community to help alleviate much of the humanitarian crisis that has been occurring in the Philippines.
It has not stopped there. What we attempted to do last week in York Centre really is a model that should be duplicated across the country. It is a model because it exhibits what the great Canadian family stands for. We know that when one member of a family is down, it is incumbent upon and the responsibility of other members of that family to reach down and pull that other family member up. That is what we have seen in the riding of York Centre.
Let me be more specific. Last week I got on the phone and called up a number of different faith leaders in the riding of York Centre. I called different churches and synagogues. I asked the religious leaders what they were doing the following day at one o'clock. All of them had plans, but I told them what I wanted to do, which was to organize an event whereby different faith leaders would stand, side by side, shoulder to shoulder, in support of the Filipino people.
Every one of them said “I am busy, but because of what you want to do, Mark, we will be there at one o'clock. We will drop all of our plans and be there”.
What we did was organize an event. It started off as a prayer session. We had six different pastors from six different ethnic churches and a rabbi. We gathered outside of Yummy Market, which is in the heart of York Centre. Yummy Market is the central place for the Russian-speaking community. That is where they do all of their shopping. We have the largest Russian-speaking community of any riding in the country.
We had all these different faith leaders come to Yummy Market. We called up Plan Canada, one of the designated charities, where dollars will be matched dollar for dollar. We got Plan Canada involved and we got cans from it to place at the checkout counters in Yummy Market. We have been encouraging other retailers throughout the riding of York Centre to accept these cans.
What we are doing is when consumers make their purchases and they are checking out of the different retail store counters, we are asking them to deposit change into these cans. These cans will be given to Plan Canada and in turn sent over to the Philippines for humanitarian relief.
Yummy Market was the first to accept these cans. We had all these different faith leaders. We had a lot of ethnic media turn out for the event. It is so important. What that demonstrates is the best of Canada. When one member of our community is down, all members of our community come to the rescue and come to stand side by side, shoulder to shoulder, with all of its other members.
That is so heartwarming to see. Now we have those cans for collecting coins in dozens of retail outlets across the riding of York Centre.
As we were wrapping up the event, a woman came over to me and said, “I have a problem with your cans, Mark. I have dollar bills I want to put in, and I can only put change in”.
People want to help. People want to give. This humanitarian crisis has really demonstrated the best Canada has to offer. It demonstrates that our country is a great champion of human dignity.