Mr. Speaker, before I begin my S.O. 31 today, I want to acknowledge and give our thoughts and prayers to the friends and the families of the victims of the stabbing at Abbotsford high school yesterday afternoon.
It is with great pleasure that I rise today to speak about the University of Northern British Columbia in my riding of Cariboo—Prince George, the university in the north and for the north. For the second year in a row, it has received Macleans' top honour of being the number one university in its class in Canada.
For the last five years, UNBC has consistently finished high in the rankings, with second place finishes in 2014, 2012 and 2008 to add to its back-to-back first place finishes in 2015, and this year. These rankings just confirm what we already know, that students come from all over the world to study at UNBC because it becomes a home away from home, because the friendships and the memories they create at UNBC last a lifetime, because the skills and lessons they learn at UNBC prepare those students for the next chapter of their lives, and because Prince George and our surrounding communities are a great place to live, work, play, invest and learn.
I congratulate the entire UNBC team and to our community of Prince George on this well-deserved achievement.