44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 12, 2023 11:00AM
- Jun/12/23 4:20:03 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, today I rise for the last time in this chamber.
It has been the honour of a lifetime for me to serve Durham in Parliament, my hometowns of Bowmanville and Port Perry, Oshawa and dozens of small towns and hamlets. However, these are just names on signposts. The real honour has been working with and learning from Durham's people—the volunteers, the young people, the civic leaders, the business leaders, indigenous leaders and first responders. It has been a joy to work with them.
I want to start my remarks by thanking my incredibly supportive and patient wife Rebecca. You are my true partner in all things, my rock and my biggest supporter. We dedicated our family to public service, and I think we made a real difference. Thank you; I love you.
I am also incredibly proud of our two children and will retain special memories of my time with them, like running in Stanley Park with Mollie and fishing for crabs on Vancouver Island with Jack. Thank you for serving Canada, and I love you too.
They are here today with my parents and one of my siblings. I want to thank all of my family for your love and support.
I want to thank my political family, my friends and family here in the Conservative caucus, my best friends from the military, from law and from the corporate world. You were with me throughout this journey. How many first-time candidates can say they had Wayne Gretzky show up at their first fundraiser? How many candidates have little platoons of veterans knocking on doors with them in every election? My success is due to you; you know who you are. Thank you very much.
I give a special thanks to my incredibly dedicated staff. The compassion from the number of people who have worked with me over the years in Durham has helped hundreds of families in our community. The incredibly bright women and men who came to work with me in Ottawa in my office as Minister of Veterans Affairs and as the leader of the official opposition often left good jobs in the private sector or elsewhere to take a chance and face immense challenge. You did this because you believed in me and in this country. Thank you. I will never forget your efforts.
I am also incredibly proud of the accomplishments we made together, both in government and in opposition. The last full sitting day of 2012 was when I first entered this chamber. Actually, it was not this chamber, but the real one up the way. I had the pleasure and honour of being escorted in as a by-election winner by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the late Jim Flaherty. Jim Flaherty was a political mentor to me and a colleague of my father's from Queen's Park, and to have my family in the audience that day as I was taking my seat for the first time is a memory I will never forget.
A few months later I had the honour to then work with my friend the hon. member for Abbotsford as his parliamentary secretary for trade, at a time when Canada had its most ambitious trade agenda in history, helping to finalize our free trade agreement with the European Union, travelling to Seoul, South Korea, to help drive home a final deal for our first free trade agreement with Asia, and while in Seoul taking the time to lay a wreath for the hundreds of Canadians who died helping that great country earn its freedom, as well as working with our friends, the United States of America and other countries in the Americas. What an exciting time for a brand new MP.
I will never forget the day I was sworn into cabinet. The memory of Mollie explaining to her three-year-old brother Jack that we were going to Rideau Hall, that it was kind of like the home of the Queen's friend in Canada, and then an hour later seeing Jack, knowing it was the Queen's friend, standing on the couch in his shoes is a memory Rebecca and I will always keep.
What an honour for a Canadian Armed Forces veteran to be able to expand mental health treatments for our veterans, to reduce wait times, to start to win trust back from a generation of Afghanistan war veterans who were already feeling forgotten.
I travelled to more Legions than anyone in Canada at that time, and I can tell the House that I was yelled at in more Legions than anyone in Canada at that time, but sometimes listening, tough talk and humility are ways to start to earn back trust.
From restoring the memory of World War I soldier and MP Sam Sharpe to expanding benefits for veterans and their families to forging friendships with the Equitas veterans who had been suing our government, I gave it my best in the time we had, and I truly believe that we made a real difference.
Getting the chance to serve as leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, the party of Confederation, the party of the bill of rights, of leading the global fight against apartheid, of calling out, at an early time, the aggression of Vladimir Putin—this was the zenith of my time in politics. Given the pandemic, polarization and uncertain prospects at the time, I took that responsibility very seriously, and I do believe that we made a real difference.
I am proud of my team and the work we did for the country on the economy and on innovation, mental health and reconciliation, and I am proud of our values and our interests on the international scene. We have proposed intelligent policies for our future.
It was an honour for me, an anglophone member from Ontario, to honour the Quebec nation and participate in debates on its culture, language and identity. These debates are important to Quebec.
When I was leader, I often said that we must preserve the only francophone nation in North America. There are seven million francophones in Quebec and across the country living in an ocean of nearly 400 million people in North America. We must recognize that that is very special, and we must protect it. It is a patriotic project. It is a truly Canadian project.
I now end my time in this chamber as it began: as the member of Parliament for Durham, as a husband, as a father, as someone who believes deeply in Canada. This is why, in my final moments, in my last time in the chamber, I want to share my thoughts with my fellow parliamentarians
Over a century ago, as war raged in Europe, Prime Minister Borden said this about a Canada coming together to meet the challenges of its age: “In the awful conditions which confront the world today, why should the political future of any individual or the political fortunes of any party stand for one moment across the path of a great national purpose?”
War is again touching Europe and democracy is being strained in many parts of the world. With this in mind, all of us in this chamber must ask ourselves this question: What is our great national purpose at this critical moment in history?
There will be an important counteroffensive from Ukraine in the war this spring, and Canadian soldiers have helped train our friends in the Ukrainian army, but just last week we learned that Canadian soldiers in Latvia were forced to buy their own helmets.
This news came mere weeks after learning that the Prime Minister had told other world leaders that Canada had no intention of paying its fair share in NATO. The country that in Borden’s time secured victory at Vimy Ridge now has its soldiers buying their own kit. The country that helped draft the NATO charter is now saying it is not willing to pay and support it.
This chamber should always ensure that the men and women have the equipment they need to do the job we ask them to do and that our country never wavers from its commitment to peace, security and living up to our word. That should be our national purpose.
There are indigenous youth in Canada who voted for the first time for people here in this chamber, yet some of these Canadians have never been able to drink the water in their communities. It is our job to ensure that every child has access to clean drinking water and a fair chance to succeed in life. That should be part of our national purpose.
It takes a decade to get a pipeline built to tidewater in this country, and two decades to get a mine into operation. Canada has been slowing down at a time when the world is asking us to speed up. Getting Canadian resources to global markets, both for our economy and for our environment, should be our shared national purpose.
There are many challenges facing Canada at this time, but there are also incredible opportunities waiting to be seized. However, that is not happening today. Instead of leading, instead of debating our national purpose in this chamber, too many of us are often chasing algorithms down a sinkhole of diversion and division. We are becoming elected officials who judge our self-worth by how many likes we get on social media, but not how many lives we change in the real world. Performance politics is fuelling polarization, virtue signalling is replacing discussion, and far too often we are just using this chamber to generate clips, not to start national debates.
Social media did not build this great country, but it is starting to tear its democracy down. If we are not careful, there will soon be a generation of young voters who have never even heard a point of view different from their own. I fear that ignorance of the views of others will slowly transform into a dislike of others, and we can see that starting to happen.
Canada is a frontier country. We were built on the strength of the fur trade, a country where going hunting with our grandfather or an elder is as quintessentially Canadian as the backyard hockey rink, but today hunters are often demonized as a threat to society by politicians who know that this is not true. Whole rural swaths of our country are being held up as the problem, just to secure a few political points in the suburbs.
We are a country that sent our citizens far from our shores several times to fight for liberty alongside other countries in multilateral efforts. Canadian diplomats, including a future prime minister, helped draft the agreements built on that sacrifice to give us decades of peace and security, creating NATO, the United Nations and the Commonwealth, but today, too often, we are allowing conspiracy theories about the UN or the World Economic Forum to go unchallenged, or we attribute sinister motives to these organizations or people in a way that is simply not true or not fair. If we do this more, we are allowing others to define the debate for us and we risk allowing others to set the course for this country, because too many members on all sides of this chamber—and from time to time I have been guilty of it myself—are becoming followers of our followers when we should be leaders.
One member from the other side of the House told me that they no longer speak to their brother because of the divisive nature of the vaccine debates in the last election. Canadian families are, in some cases, finding it difficult to talk to each other about important issues. If we ever want to change this and begin to have respectful and serious discussions again, that change needs to start right here in Canada's House of Commons.
Why should the political future of any single member of the chamber or the electoral success of any one party stand in the way of our unity and of the prosperity we want to give to our children? Preserving these things and rising to meet the unique challenges facing Canada and the world today needs to be our national purpose.
As members of Parliament, we must always put the country first. We must lead and not just follow. We must strive to inspire and be careful not to incite. We must debate with insightful reason and not just tweet out of frustration. If we do not, decades in the future, Canadians will point to the current Parliament as the time when our national decline first began. However, I say to my colleagues that I do not think that will happen. I am an optimist, and I hope all members reflect on some of these things over the summer, because I believe that Canada’s best days are actually ahead of us. I believe in this great country and its people, and I believe in each of my friends. It has been an honour to serve with them.
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- Jun/12/23 4:36:55 p.m.
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I want to thank my good friend from Durham. I believe there are a few other comments to be had.
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- Jun/12/23 4:37:14 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is my honour to rise today to speak about a neighbour and long-time colleague, a friend who, while we disagree vociferously on many different issues, always had the interests of Durham and his country in his heart. I want to start by thanking the member for Durham for his service to Durham, to our community and to our country.
We do not often enough rise in our place to recognize the contribution that people who have different opinions from us make. When the member for Durham talks about the darkness that is casting a shadow over this world right now, it is remarkable that we live in a country where, when we say goodbye to one another and thank one another for our service, we can recognize that which is good in the other person. We can recognize that the debate we have, the differences we have and the ways we exchange those differences in this place, is what makes Canada so very special and is at the core of much of what the member talked about.
I had the opportunity to meet the member for Durham in a way that is most fitting: out giving back to the community. This was well before he was in elected office. He was giving to charity, active in his community, involved in the legion and involved in any important cause. He was somebody who, like John, his father before him, served our community admirably. I knew I could go to him and have a conversation about what mattered for our community and where we needed to put aside partisan differences. The member for Durham did not just serve the House or serve his community as a volunteer; he also served in the military, where he went as far as becoming a captain. He put his life on the line for our country, which is something we are profoundly grateful for.
He was also a lawyer and, as mentioned, a minister of the Crown, which is a remarkable accomplishment. It is one that I know he holds deep in his heart. I want to talk about that and what he did, partnering with Senator Roméo Dallaire, to raise awareness for Samuel Sharpe, not only with the memorial here, but also with the memorial in Uxbridge, really bringing attention to the issue of mental health in our armed services generally. That was something he took from his time serving in the military and attacked with great passion in his time as a cabinet minister. It is something I am deeply appreciative of, and it is a conversation we have to continue.
He also had a real sense of fun and was somebody who was up for the challenge of doing something different. I was just talking to the Minister of Families. When she was the minister of democratic institutions, there was an event most of us attend called Politics and the Pen. He was asked to dance publicly, which is something he had never done before. He was there doing a 1940s-style swing dance. He did it because he wanted to help out. I do not know that I am big enough to put myself on display like that and dance publicly, but he did, for something he cared about.
Most of all, as members heard in the member for Durham's speech, he is first and foremost a father to Mollie and Jack, a husband to Rebecca, and a son to John, whom I know well so I mention him specifically. He is somebody who has really had family at the centre of his life. As somebody who knows deeply the sacrifice of public life, I want to say to the member's family that I thank them for their sacrifice so he could be shared in this place and so he could share his voice and his service. I cannot imagine the level of sacrifice needed and the level of scrutiny one goes through when one is the leader of a party. I do think we have to pay particular respect to those who would step forward into the space of leadership, particularly in this time. The member talked about the destructive power of social media and the nastiness that is going around. There is not a member of the House who is not subject to it. There is not one of us who has not had to look at something and have it strike us in our heart as being deeply cruel and mean. To have his family subjected to that as well is incredibly difficult.
He stood and fought for what he believed in. We have a democracy that we can thank for that. Perhaps, that is something we can be called to in this moment when we talk about former prime minister Robert Borden's call to a greater purpose.
That greater purpose is our democracy. It is the respect we show for one another, that, as we have debates and differences, we recognize that those differences are so small compared to the love we have for this country and the love we have for serving our community. In our words and in our differences of policy, the member for Durham and I had very vigorous debates and disagreements, but in one another's eyes we see a love for our community, a love for our country and a desire to serve.
I thank the member for Durham for his service to this place and to our country. I wish him every success in the days ahead.
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- Jun/12/23 4:49:23 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to honour the member for Durham. I had the pleasure of getting to know him more personally during a mission to Washington in May 2022. We had a great time chatting over glasses of wine and beer during an embassy reception and later at a wonderful restaurant, the Old Ebbitt Grill, which is an institution in Washington. I highly recommend it to all members heading to Washington.
Before that, I only knew him politically. I must admit that he annoyed me during the 2021 election campaign because he came to visit my riding often. He wanted to win it, so he kept visiting to show support for his candidate. At one point, he promised $7 million to create an agri-food research and development centre. I am sure members can imagine how well this idea went over in Saint‑Hyacinthe. I did not feel much affection for the member for Durham when he proposed that. Democracy is democracy, of course.
I am forced to admit that the departure of the member for Durham clearly marks the end of an era. For him, it is the end of a decade as a member serving his constituents, first and foremost, and as minister of veterans affairs, the position he held under the former Harper government.
However, it is probably not the end of his public service or his service to people in general. I recently ran into him on the outside, and he told me what field he would be working in. I will no doubt have to work with him again. As he lives in Ottawa, we will be able to go back to our old habit of chatting over a beer. We may not be able to change the world that way, but we might make progress on some issues.
As everyone knows, he previously served in the armed forces. Let us be honest, the member seems both too young to retire and maybe too old to change his deep-rooted nature. People are saying that he has not left public service and never will. I am convinced that public service will catch up with him at some point, no matter what field he goes into.
His departure marks the end of a certain era for the Conservative Party. He was elected leader in 2020 ahead of a general election that would take place on September 20, 2021. I was listening to his speech earlier and that reminded me of another speech, his first in the House as opposition leader in September 2020. As we say back home, it was long but good.
I remember that even though his vision for Canada's future was obviously incompatible with our vision for Quebec's future, and even though we disagreed with some of his public policies, I recognized those he was speaking to. He was talking to the people. We all remember the famous contract with Quebec he proposed during the 2021 campaign—he is giving me a thumbs-up. That famous contract did not get signed in the end, but not for a lack of understanding of the differences that characterize Quebeckers nor for highlighting commonalities that could have proved promising. He even repeated that in his speech just now.
Although his choice of themes did not necessarily align with the Bloc Québécois's priorities, we must admit that on some issues, such as the need to stand up to China, he was ahead of many people here in the House. I congratulate the member for Durham for that.
Let us look back at his first speech as leader of the opposition in 2020. We realized right away that we were in for some really great debates and that the bar was being set pretty high, because we were dealing with such a fine political opponent.
A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then, perhaps even a torrent, the hon. member might say. Through it all, the member for Durham has remained unchanged, as he demonstrated just a few days ago in his speech on Chinese interference, which targeted him directly. He spoke eloquently and had the decency and the statesmanship that he was obviously proud to uphold.
Indeed, many Hill commentators have commended his speech and how he managed to rise above the fray. Some even called it the best plea for an independent public inquiry. Ultimately, what we will remember about this member's time in politics is that he was able to put his country before his party, that he was concerned about the future of all his fellow Canadians, and that he was as humble about the importance of the elected role as he was uncompromising when it came to protecting democracy. Simply put, he is a good and decent man.
On behalf of the Bloc Québécois, I would like to thank the member for Durham for his years of service in the House of Commons. His party will miss him. For some people, it may take a little longer to miss him, but they will eventually miss him, too.
He will be missed in the House and certainly by his constituents, although we know he will not be too far away. We wish him all the best in his future challenges. I say to him thank you and congratulations.
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- Jun/12/23 4:59:41 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise in this place to add the voice of the Green caucus in saying farewell to the hon. member for Durham, and he exemplifies the term an honourable member.
There are a lot of my colleagues in this place. If I were asked when I first met, for example, the hon. member for Elmwood—Transcona, who just spoke, I cannot remember the first time we met. We have known each other forever. When was the first time? How would we know? The same thing applies to many friends around this place.
However, I remember, and the hon. member for Durham knows this, with crystal-clear clarity, the moment we met. It was right after his election in the 2012 by-election, and he won me over forever. He came up to me and said, “I want to say hi. I went to Dal law school too.”
Those of us who went to Dalhousie law school hold that in common, although, not that I need to mention it, the member for Durham did graduate 20 years after me. Therefore, we were not classmates, although we would have had fun if we had been.
I also want to add my thanks to Rebecca, Mollie and Jack. They will probably remember a candid and fun moment we all had together at the Billy Bishop Airport. There is nothing like making friends across party lines and truly meaning it.
The hon. member for Durham has stood for what I think is the best about this place and the best of being Canadian, which is to be able to disagree without being disagreeable. He has conducted himself in this place with the gravitas that comes with being a party leader and with speaking across party lines, while, again, having differences but not descending into what he mentioned in his speech, and I appreciated it, which is the business of manipulating algorithms. No one could accuse the hon. member for Durham of being interested in rage farming.
I will end here, because we have had a lot of speeches and I think the whole family is probably keen to get going and do something more fun. I hope the rest of their lives together will be more fun, that they have time to be together as family. I hope he can continue to contribute to our country and the life of it, as he has done in the military and as he has done in this place. The country and those of us appreciate the way in which he has conducted himself in politics. We will all be able to reflect that the time together as family, and the good times, is well deserved and well received.
God bless you and thank you.
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- Jun/12/23 5:02:55 p.m.
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Before we close, I will use a bit of the Speakers' prerogative as well.
Knowing the member for Durham and Rebecca for probably close to 20-some years now, I have been honoured to work with him and alongside him. I thank him for his service on behalf of the House of Commons. I hope he does not go too far; Canada still needs him. We do hope he comes to visit us on occasion and keeps us up to date on what is going on, because his friendship is always very important to many of us. This is for Mollie, Jack and Rebecca as well.
I thank you very much.
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