Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak about a community in my riding locally known as “AP”. It is often called Alex Park, but its proper name is Alexandra Park.
While Alex Park’s roots run deep, its branches reach the sky. The community boasts that it sends more of its kids per capita to post-secondary school than any other public housing project in Canada. A few years back it turned itself into a co-op housing community. The co-op is named for the man who had that vision of self-determination: Sonny Atkinson.
Even during the pandemic, Alex Park is rebuilding itself, adding new homes and new hope to the neighbourhood. The community centre is at the heart of AP and during COVID, it saw its young leaders rise to the challenge. It has built a bigger kitchen, turned spare rooms into a food bank, and delivered groceries to families in need, while delivering home-cooked meals to hundreds of seniors every day, every week and every month.
Resilient, remarkable, beautiful and bold, caring and full of characters, it is an honour to be their MP and it is an honour to share their story with Canada through Parliament.