Madam Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition initiated by Councillor Teri Towner of Coquitlam, British Columbia. Teri's petition was supported from coast to coast to coast and calls upon the Government of Canada to recognize the value in service within search and rescue communities by establishing a national search and rescue day.
The petitioners say that a national search and rescue day would honour living past and present search and rescue volunteers to whom Canadians owe an immense debt of gratitude; that search and rescue personnel are unpaid volunteers who drop whatever they are doing, any time of day or night, to search for and provide aid to people in distress or imminent danger; that more than 12,000 search and rescue volunteers throughout Canada have trained thousands of hours to provide search and rescue services in the air, on land and waters within hundreds of established search and rescue teams; and that search and rescue volunteers are unsung heroes who assist citizens in distress and are credited with saving lives.