Mr. Chair, I would like to thank the parliamentary secretary for his question and for his leadership with his bill in 2008 recognizing the Holodomor as a genocide. Canada was the first nation to do that, and I thank him for his work and his efforts.
Our Canadian Ukrainian diaspora is the strongest Ukrainian diaspora anywhere in the world. It is the best organized. It is the best administered. It is the best educated, and it is the one that is best positioned to educate people about Ukraine and the issues going on there. Many of the members of this House have benefited from it. Members of the Ukrainian diaspora sent along the briefing note this evening that I think all of us have read by this point. It was very insightful and very detailed. I thank the members of the diaspora for providing all those details on what is currently going on. I also thank the members of the League of Ukrainian Canadians, who have preserved much of the history of the former Ukraine through a lot of their work.
In our diaspora and in Canada, the Ukrainian community is highly mobilized and highly vocalized on this issue. Many have gone over there. Our Minister of Foreign Affairs was recently there with the president of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, whom I would like to congratulate on his recent re-election for his third term.
Our minister, as everybody will know, is not a shy man. He was very clear and unequivocal in talking to his counterparts from Ukraine as to Canada's views on the situation in Ukraine today, and in fact, in communicating the views of the Ukrainian diaspora here. Both have tremendous influence. We will continue to engage with Ukraine with that level of intensity.