Mr. Speaker, I would like to pay tribute to the 30 or so volunteers in the parish of Saint-Yves de Québec who form the refugee outreach committee.
The committee was established in July 1979 during the dramatic events surrounding the boat people from Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos. Since 1979, the Saint-Yves de Québec parish has welcomed 344 newcomers, including 64 who arrived in the last year.
Over the years, the Saint-Yves parish refugee outreach committee has sponsored refugees in distress, helped reunite families scattered by war and facilitated the integration of sponsored newcomers into Quebec society.
I want to sincerely thank and commend the volunteers with the refugee outreach committee of the Saint-Yves parish for their immense generosity and the impressive quality of their outreach work, which has changed and continues to change life for the better for people in distress.