Mr. Chair, there are 600,000 Filipinos living in Canada, nearly half in the Greater Toronto Area, and of that number there are 6,000 in my riding of York South—Weston. Many of them are very worried about what has happened in their community and what communications they can expect from that community. They are actually quite grateful for the government's matching funding. However, it is unfortunate that it is such a short period of time, because it does take some time to organize the funding to be matched.
On Saturday, I will be participating in an event to raise money at the Iglesia ni Cristo Congregation in Mount Dennis in my riding. Our hearts go out to the victims of this disaster.
I urge the government to consider extending the matching funds time beyond December 9. I am aware of fundraising for Haiti that went on well beyond the period of time that was set aside by the government. I understand there needs to be some closure on it, but it would be easier on these communities if they were given more time to organize themselves around fundraising in order to access the matching funds from the government; although we do appreciate the fact that there are matching funds from the government.
I know the minister did not like the fact that this was brought up, but I will comment on the series of natural disasters on this planet in the past few years: Katrina, Sandy, the snow storms in Europe, the recent flooding in Alberta, the flooding in Toronto and, just last Sunday, a series of tornadoes in November in the United States, which caused a tremendous amount of damage.
I am not suggesting for a moment that there is some reason in a take note debate to ascribe blame in some fashion to anyone or anything, but I would note that the world is watching as these storms become more frequent and more dangerous. It is something for which Canada and every government in the world has to be prepared. We have to be paying attention to the fact that these things are becoming more difficult.
The City of Toronto has asked the Government of Canada for assistance in infrastructure spending to prepare itself for future storms such as the one that happened on July 8 of this year, which caused $1 billion of damage in the city of Toronto alone. So far the response from the government has been to say no.
We must take stronger preventive action to prepare ourselves for natural disasters, the likes of which many of us have never even imagined. It has happened in the Philippines and it can happen anywhere in the world, and it would appear it is happening with much more frequency.
I will close by saying that I too want to thank the members of the disaster team from the Canadian military who have gone to the Philippines. They make Canada proud every time they are sent out. I want to thank every one of them for the work they are doing and the selflessness with which they leave Canada and go into a disaster area.