Honourable Gordon Brown, chair of the House committee on heritage, honourable members for the House committee on heritage, ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted and excited to be called as a witness regarding Bill S-219.

My name is Do Trac Bang. My Canadian friends call me Chuck, because I have been in Canada for 35 years.

I am the president of the Canada-Vietnam Friendship Association, and the friendship ambassador for the City of Toronto in Vietnam. I tell you this to show that I have a long experience of serving the community. From 1986 to 1992, for three consecutive terms, I was the appointment in council for the Ontario government on multiculturalism.

I am here to be a witness for Bill S-219, because I think the bill expresses our support for the recognition of the Vietnamese community in Canada.

As a Vietnamese refugee who came to Canada in January 1980, I am one of the members of the Vietnamese boat people. I don't want to talk about the bill for long, but every member around the table has a letter written by me in which I express my point of view on behalf of the Vietnamese community.

I would like to make the point to the committee today, with regard to the wording of this bill, that I believe up to 90% of the Vietnamese community would support choosing July 27 to commemorate the Vietnamese boat people's first exodus to Canada. In this spirit and with due respect, I am calling on the honourable Senator Ngo Thanh Hai to adopt July 27 as the commemoration day to be proposed in Bill S-219 as this day is perfectly meaningful and realistically acceptable to our community.

I represent the older generation, those who first arrived in Canada. However, with me is Mr. Van Hoang Nguyen, who is from the younger generation, those who have also come from Vietnam but who were born after the war ended in 1975. He represents the younger generation and can express the will of the community before the members of the parliamentary committee today.

I would like to ask Mr. Van Hoang Nguyen to take the floor, please.

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