Mr. Speaker, today I want to acknowledge the involvement and dedication of Ghislain Roy who on October 28 received the Conseil du patrimoine religieux du Québec award of excellence in volunteering.
Since 2014, Mr. Roy has been the president of the Fondation Héritage whose mission is to create permanent funding to ensure the conservation of the St. Teresa of Avila cathedral in Amos.
Our cathedral needs major maintenance and restoration work costing millions of dollars. With a dedicated team, Mr. Roy has already obtained financial commitments to the tune of $1.8 million of which $600,000 comes directly from the community. The Roman-Byzantine architecture of Amos' cathedral makes it unique in North America.
We must acknowledge our heritage and work on keeping our monuments in place. Our grandparents, and my great-uncles in fact, worked on building the cathedral just a century ago. Now we need a financial contribution from the federal government.
At this point, I can only express my sincere disappointment that Ottawa has not responded to the many appeals from Ghislain Roy and his team. That must change now.