Thank you, Mr. Speaker, good morning; and good morning, colleagues. Colleagues, I rise today to extend congratulations to a truly northern aviation company celebrating 25 years of service to northerners and to maybe set the record straight about a company that people across the north have come to rely on for hauling everything from foodstuffs, personal mail, mining companies, trappers, fishermen and little league baseball players, who either fly free or at a minimum cost. That company is Buffalo Airways.
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Congratulations to a company that draws positive international recognition for it's operating standards, standards proven to be so exceptional that leading insurance companies offer prime rates, providing an opportunity for this government to save millions of dollars over the next five years.
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Congratulations for a level of expertise demonstrated by a professional staff hand-picked by the company's president Mr. McBryan. Congratulations for building a reputation that's unbeatable for the quality of service and the degree of respect offered each and every customer. Congratulations to a company that northerners recognize for the Buffalo green that stands out so well against our snow-covered runways.
Here's a genuine northern company with a history that started at a small mining camp north of Yellowknife in 1946, a history that began in the imagination of a five-year-old boy playing on the shores of Gordon Lake, where he lived with his parents. At a time, Mr. Speaker, when toys were in short supply, young McBryan's toys were a couple of wooden airplanes that his father meticulously carved from the trunk of a jack pine tree, a territorial tree.
This, Mr. Speaker -- what I'm holding in my hand -- is the flagship of the Buffalo fleet as it's known today. This is a little airplane, the first airplane of the fleet, which would eventually become the larger Buffalo airplanes of today. In 1970, a young bush pilot showed up in Fort Smith with an Aztec, the first instrumental flight-rated airplane for hire in that community.
Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to continue.