Mr. Speaker, this week we marked the International Day of Women and Girls in Science.
At a time when, in some parts of the world, the scientific community is being discredited and dismembered, Canada chooses a different path. We choose to invest in discovery, to trust evidence and to honour our late colleague, Kirsty Duncan. We choose to celebrate this and do this with the women and girls who are driving breakthroughs in labs, classrooms and communities across our country.
Last month at the Canadian Science Policy Centre conference, I had the privilege of hearing Dr. Shohini Ghose, professor of physics and computer science at Wilfrid Laurier University, as she accepted a Trailblazer Award. She reminded us that some comets blaze brightly and some do not, but all are equally extraordinary. She read a sci-ku, a science haiku, of her own devising:
Let us be quantum
Entangled across space time
Hearts and minds as well
This week we recognize Dr. Ghose and the many women whose curiosity, courage and brilliance have shaped our world and the generations of girls like my daughter who, because of them, know they belong in science.