Mr. Chair, I want to congratulate the minister on his appointment as the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. I have not had a chance to do that. This is the first time in the House that I can do that, so congratulations to him. The minister's portfolio is very important, and we wish him well in assisting those on the ground.
I have a couple of key questions. One is a question that I asked before: does the minister have some feedback on why we ended up where we are, in Panay? Are we going to be staying there for the long term?
Seemingly, we are the only ones there. It was affected, but it is not the epicentre. Could the minister share that with us? As well, how long are we planning to stay there? Is that where we are going to be situated?
I would finish off by saying that I do have to intervene when the minister says that we on this side, the NDP, are only concerned about climate change. Let us be honest. We were not saying that someone on a hunger strike who is representing the Philippines would have stopped. I think he would appreciate that.
In the spirit of this debate about sharing best ideas and putting forward ideas, I would hope the minister is not going to go down that path. We were simply mentioning that someone was on a hunger strike. There is a climate change conference on. We think it is part of the equation here. My colleague was simply referring to a representative of the Philippines who made the comment in Toronto. He is someone we work with and have good diplomatic relations with.
I know we have a different point of view on climate change. The government does not believe it is as important as we might; however, let us try to put that aside. I think the minister was implying that somehow we thought that just supporting someone on a hunger strike in this case was enough. Clearly that is not the case. We have all donated. We are supporting the government on its donations. I would just like to try to shift us back to that spirit of the debate.