Mr. Chair, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for using some adjectives to describe the Filipino people. He described some of them as caring and giving. I have many friends and families who live in my community. I would like to add hard-working and resilient. I know this because when I was in the Philippines in the metro Manilla area, in Malate and Bicol, I got to see the people who live and work in the communities first-hand.
I join my colleagues in the House in saying mabuhay ang Pilipinas, long live the Philippines. However, I also want to say salamat to the Filipinos who are living in Canada, the Canadians of Filipino descent. We thank them. Of course, on behalf of Canadians of Filipino descent in Canada, and the almost 10,000 in my community of Scarborough—Rouge River, I want to say maraming salamat, a very big thank you to the members in the community who are coming together to raise money and awareness. We need to continue to do that. We need to continue to act now and give money to the needy communities around the affected areas.
My colleague in his speech had spoken about the need to reunite families. I wonder if he could help us to get the message out to the community members here in Canada. If they have a family member who has been identified in the affected areas how should they be alerting the officials? What should they be doing? Should they be getting in touch with their barangay captains? What should they be doing in their communities to alert Canadian officials so we can actually help them with the family reunification process?