Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to follow those comments.
Today, Special Olympics athletes, coaches, and parents from across Canada are here in Ottawa to meet with MPs. This past September, I had the great honour of meeting an inspiring young man, Quinn Martin, a swimmer from my riding of Spadina—Fort York. He told me how the Special Olympics have enriched his life by giving him the chance to compete in the sport he loves. However, it has also done something more important. It has given him his voice, a voice that he now uses in his family and his community to advocate for his peers.
Today, I also had the honour of meeting another athlete from Toronto, Simran Kaur, her parents Hardeep Singh and Jaspal Kaur, and Linda Ashe, the vice-president of the Special Olympics, are here in Ottawa today.
The Special Olympics program and communities right across this country, from coast to coast to coast, are helping more than 40,000 Canadians like Quinn experience the joy and the transformative power of sport. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Special Olympics Canada for the positive role it plays in all of our communities across this country. This evening, it will be hosting a reception with the Minister of Sport and Persons with Disabilities. I encourage all of us to attend—