Liberal MP Albina Guarnieri played host this week to a number of students from China yesterday in Ottawa. They gathered in the empty House of Commons to have their pictures taken.

Ms. Guarnieri joked that she “found a use for the empty Parliament.”

It’s a neat story: In 1997, she went to China with Canadian businessman Francis Pang to help open a school that has Canadian teachers and uses curriculum from New Brunswick. He is now, according to Ms. Guarnieri the largest employer of Canadians in China, with four schools in operation and a fifth opening soon.

Every year students from these Chinese schools visit Ottawa. Ms. Guarnieri’s group students were from the Beijing Concord College of Sino Canada. In fact, Stephen Harper visited the school when he was in China recently and students from the school sang in the opening ceremonies at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Says Ms. Guarnieri: “Teachers from all over Canada are gaining experience in China and Canadian universities are benefiting by having hundreds of students paying full foreign student tuition.”

For Further information contact:

(905) 566-0009
guarna@parl.gc.ca

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