I’m delighted to introduce to the House today two of my dedicated constituency staff, up to Toronto for the first time: Jada Malott and Brianna Robinson. Welcome to the House.

I’m very happy to introduce Elaine, a marvellous volunteer from my riding of Scarborough North. It is her first time here today at the Legislature. Welcome to Queen’s Park, Elaine.

Speaker, as the 43rd Parliament rises for the summer, I’d like to acknowledge my fellow MPPs on both sides of the House for your continued dedication to your constituents and connecting with them over the summer months.

As we look forward to a season full of family gatherings, graduations, vacations and day trips to some of the most beautiful destinations in Ontario, I invite you to visit my riding of Lanark–Frontenac–Kingston. From hiking the trails to taking in live music at one of the world-famous festivals, there is something for all ages.

Enjoy cultural events like the Spirit of the Drum Pow-Wow this Saturday and Sunday in Smiths Falls. Experience one of our festivals, like the world-renowned Stewart Park Festival in Perth, Puppets Up! in Almonte, the Sydenham Lakes and Trails Festival and the Blue Skies Music Festival in Clarendon, just to name a few. Families will enjoy our many fairs in Lombardy, Carleton Place, Pakenham, Mississippi Mills, Smiths Falls, Perth and many others.

Experience canoeing or kayaking along the natural waterways in Lanark and Frontenac counties and take in the pristine, protected wilderness, or travel the UNESCO World Heritage site, the Rideau Canal, which passes through Perth, Smiths Falls and many other towns from Ottawa to Kingston.

Mr. Speaker, I wish everyone a safe, happy and healthy summer, and if you’re thinking about a day trip or a multi-day adventure, remember: There is much to do and see in Lanark–Frontenac–Kingston.

I want to welcome Gulshan Bakshi, a retired CAF veteran air officer, and his daughter, Aananya Bakshi, our page captain for today, sitting to your right.

I’d like to welcome my EA from MCU, Navita Sukhdeo, who is here today in the members’ gallery with her daughter, Eliyanna Ali, and also my EA from my constit office, Caroline Raskin, who is here today with her husband, Steve Raskin.

I would like to welcome two amazing ladies from my constituency office, Barbara Greene and Yesenia Morillo. I’d also like to wish a very happy birthday to Yesenia’s daughter Mia, who is watching from home today and graduating from school. All the best.

I noticed in the gallery one of my interns, Adshayah, is here. Also, Spencer Fair from my office—he says it’s his mom, but I think it’s his sister: Valerie Fair is with us as well.

I have my amazing team visiting from the MTO. We’ve got Michael Thomas, Greg MacNeil, Nicholas Tibollo, Matthew McIntosh, Barbara Stevenson, Ashley Seo, Tony Manful and, although he’s not in the Legislature, David Lu. And from my constituency office, we’ve got Vanessa Clarke, Rosanna Ma and Jess Lee. Welcome to the Legislature.

First of all, to Jack Sullivan, who is moving on, I say thank you very much. It’s been an amazing journey.

Secondly, I’d like to welcome to the House the OMAFRA interns: William Hollis as well as Faiq Farooq.

I believe my nephew, Jack McMillan, is in the House somewhere as well.

It’s a true honour to rise today to pay tribute to Ontario’s eighth legislative Clerk-in-chief, Todd Decker, for his service to the members of the Ontario Legislative Assembly and the people of Ontario, and for the leadership, Todd, you have provided for everybody who works in this building.

Prior to being appointed Clerk-in-chief in 2016, Todd served in this building for 32 years, totalling 39 years of service to the people of Ontario. He has earned our trust and our respect with his wisdom, his integrity, his non-partisan guidance and his famous poker face.

Todd has had to navigate this Legislature through extraordinary times during much of his tenure, not only during the pandemic emergency, where he played an essential role in ensuring the functioning of the parliamentary democracy in this province and the business here in the House, but also in managing an unprecedented number of independent members of the Legislature.

My election as Ontario’s first Green MPP in 2018 resulted in the first time that there was a fourth party elected to this Legislature since 1951 and, with the results that the Liberals experienced in that election, the most independent members in the Legislature since the 1940s. Let’s just say the standing orders were not written for such an unprecedented number of independent MPPs. I’ll admit that I spent much of the summer of 2018 in Todd’s office, not only learning how this place works, but also working with him to ensure the rights and privileges of independent members in this House.

Todd, I’ll be forever grateful for the wisdom, guidance and time that you took, and the patience you had to work with a team of newbies who had no idea how this place worked, and to work with us to ensure that we had the opportunity to have full participatory rights in this House. That legacy will endure. Todd, our democracy is stronger because of your service, and the people of Ontario and all members of this Legislature owe you a debt of gratitude—

Applause.

Todd Decker has been the Clerk of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario for 26 years, but with the Assembly for 39 years. His career has been truly unique and remarkable. His job is like no other job, but there is a short description of the role of the Clerk on the assembly website. It says that “The Clerk is the chief permanent officer of the Legislative Assembly.” I guess it’s permanent until he retires, that is.

It goes on to say, “An expert in parliamentary rules and procedures, the Clerk advises the Speaker and members of provincial Parliament on questions of procedure and interpretation of the rules and practices of the House.” So the Clerk is like the ChatGPT of the Legislature, but with a soul. Ask him anything, no matter how obscure, and Todd will respond comprehensively and with computational speed.

“In order to communicate easily with the Speaker, the Clerk sits at a long table in front of the Speaker’s chair.” That table is like the central nerve of this House, counting down the minutes we’re allowed to speak. And it should be noted that during the many hours Mr. Decker has been sitting at that table, he has done admirably at keeping a poker face, despite the buffooneries that sometimes happen in here. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a sense of humour; just ask his colleagues.

“He is also responsible for keeping track of the votes in the Chamber”—no interpretation or no wiggle room here. It carries, or it doesn’t.

“After a provincial election, the Clerk swears in the newly elected members of provincial Parliament.” Having been elected in a by-election during the pandemic, Todd Decker was my only official host when I started. I can never thank him enough for being so supportive at a very confusing time.

The Clerk “is also responsible for the administration of Legislative Assembly services that support Ontario’s MPPs.” And supporting Ontario’s MPPs, he has done extensively. What it really includes, I would tell you, but I don’t think I or anyone else really knows.

All said, it’s undeniable that Todd Decker has gone above and beyond the call of duty to shape this place into what it is today and create a sense of belonging for all of us. He will be remembered for his exceptional professionalism, dedication and expertise. We will miss his positive demeanour and remarkable personality.

I got a call from John Fraser this morning, so I do have to add this sentence. He says, “Todd has been of great service to this assembly. I want to thank him personally for his support and for the thankless task of helping me understand the standing orders.”

All the best, Todd, from all of us.

I’m pleased to recognize the government House leader.

I’m pleased to recognize the member for Timiskaming–Cochrane.

Speaker, it’s an incredible honour for me to be able to stand today, on behalf of the official opposition, and I believe on behalf of all people in the Legislature, to pay tribute to Mr. Todd Decker, the eighth Clerk to sit in that chair.

I have a little bit of history: When he finished university, he was hired as a committee Clerk, and he started as a co-op student here.

I’ve got to say that sitting here in the last while and serving on some committees with Todd, there’s no one more deserving of the accolades he’s getting today and no one more uncomfortable with them. I can guarantee you that.

Some of us might remember a cartoon in the Bugs Bunny series—this has a point—where the sheepdog and the wolf would clock in and beat each other up all day and then go home, right? And that’s what we do. And the only thing missing in that cartoon is where the sheepdog and the wolf go up to this table and ask what the rules are. The person at the table watches it go on and his face never changes. Todd fits that to a T.

In his career, and certainly in the 12 years that I’ve been here, for everyone here, despite our political differences, who was the one person we trusted to give us the square deal on how we could do it or what we couldn’t do? Who was the head of the ship? Mr. Todd Decker.

It’s incredible to be elected here. One of the things that we all share as elected representatives is we all like to be heard. We have egos. We like to talk. There are only a few people here who actually have a lot of control, maybe ultimate control of this place, and don’t have an ego. Their true role is to make sure that our democratic process runs as it should. Todd Decker is the ultimate example of that—the ultimate, ultimate example of that.

I have also had the incredible honour of sitting here on a few Thursday afternoons. You know what? This place isn’t always exciting. It can be, and it might be incredibly exciting in a few minutes, but it isn’t always exciting. And it’s always amazed me that all at the Clerks’ table, but particularly Todd, can listen and his face just stays as—he never shows a side but he never shows that he’s disinterested. But I’ve got to admit, there have been a couple times where Todd and I have both been fighting to keep our eyes open. Now, he did a much better job of it than I did because once I opened my eyes and he was looking right at me.

I don’t know if I share this with everyone: I don’t come from a political background. When I was first elected, I was as far over there as you could get—and there’s no bad seat in this House. I want to make everyone aware: There’s no such thing as a bad seat in this House. And I actually wondered—I didn’t know anything about how parliamentary democracy worked—what these people were doing and what happened behind the dais. I didn’t have the knowledge or the respect, but now I do.

I’d like anyone listening to this—the people here at the Clerks’ table, behind the dais, on the dais, they’re what make our Parliament work, our democracy work. And once again, there is no better representative of that in this country than Mr. Todd Decker. On our behalf, thank you very much, sir.

Speaker, if you seek it, you’ll find unanimous consent to allow members to make statements in tribute to the outstanding service of Mr. Todd Decker, the eighth Clerk of the Legislative Assembly, with five minutes allotted today to His Majesty’s loyal opposition, five members allotted to the independent members as a group and five minutes allotted to His Majesty’s government.

Speech, speech.

Thank you very much.

I recognize the government House leader and Minister of Legislative Affairs.

It is truly an honour to be able to rise on behalf of our caucus to pay tribute to Todd and the extraordinary work that he has done. I think the opposition House leader is quite correct that he is probably the most uncomfortable person in the chamber today. My office mentioned to me earlier in the week that Todd was fabricating a sickness so that he could not be here today. I had actually reached out to the Minister of Natural Resources to ask for one of those tracking devices so that we could find him, and we’ll probably have to leave it on him for a couple of years so that we can find him and call him back in.

It’s funny; I was a staff member here in the 1990s, and in 2003, when the people retired that particular government, I was a young guy. When I came back in 2018, I came back to this place old, fat and grey, and Todd looked exactly the same. So immediately, we started off on the wrong foot, because he was looking so good and I thought, “What the heck? What happened?”

He has been an extraordinary public servant. It is truly hard to explain in five minutes—and I know we all feel the same way—just how important the job of the Clerk is. But what an incredible job he has done. All members should know and will know how forceful and fierce he is about this place: the pride that he has in this place, the pride that he has in all of the members and the extent to which he goes to not only protect the institution and the people who work for him, but us as members. It is truly unbelievable.

I’m told that when he signed the Bible that the Clerks sign, he signed it as the ninth Clerk, out of respect for somebody who took the job on an interim basis. That’s really just the type of person that he is.

Now, I know that certainly since I’ve been House leader, that spirit of co-operation has been so good that the job has been just so much easier for him, because we get along so much better, and I know that he is grateful for that. But colleagues, I do want to really zone in—and the leader of the Green Party talked about it—on what Parliament decided during COVID, that we would continue on as a Parliament and that we had to do the work of the opposition holding us accountable and the government moving forward. When that request was made—and, colleagues, this was literally the only Parliament in North America that decided not to stand down, all of us. That was Todd and his team, and it was remarkable. People from all over North America were asking, “How the heck did you guys continue to do this, on both sides?” Everybody—their work, his work, his leadership are what made it possible for us to continue on doing the job. So we can talk about the hours spent in debating how we got it done, but literally it got done because of Todd and his team.

It is also the work—one of the hardest jobs, I think, of a Clerk is when they look at who the next person will be and they get to decide who the Deputy Clerk is going to be, and Todd started right from the beginning looking at where he would be, when he would bring his time to an end as our Clerk, who would be the person that he could prepare to take on that job. That is probably one of the most difficult decisions a Clerk would have to make, and he did it right from the beginning. I really can’t thank him enough for just the extraordinary work that he has done.

Yesterday was another extraordinary day, probably one of the first times in Commonwealth history that four Clerks were seated around one table, one learning from the other.

As we started to talk about the process, all of us, all of the members, on what we would do with this building, how we would fix it and renovate it to make sure that it was respectful and really pay tribute—it was Todd who helped us design what it is, how we could ensure that members were protected in that process. Everything that we brought forward and everything that Parliament voted on unanimously was because of the extraordinary work and advice of the Clerk. Knowing full well that he would not be here in the chair when the time came, he never relented at any given point. He was fierce in defending us, fierce in defending this Legislature and all of the members in it.

What he doesn’t know—I know, because I truly fear that he’s just going to run out and be gone, because he just really, truly hates accolades. You could never be a politician, because we—not me. But we know how much John loves to get accolades, right? It’s just a quiet, reserved respect for the chair, so much so that I was literally terrified to even ask him a question for the first year that I took over as House leader. So I was always with Trevor, and one of my staff said to me, “Why don’t you ever ask Todd a question?” I said, “I’m afraid of him,” not because he gave me any reason to be afraid, but he was literally able to not—you say you don’t show emotion. It is hard, because there are some things sometimes, once in a while, that make you want to have facial expressions, and he has not done that.

Just the last thing, as I close: When we get elected, we all fight to get in a picture with the Clerk. It’s the one thing that will be on our walls—all of us, forever—and it’s the one thing that we will brag about and we will talk about. It is not only the person; it is also the office, and that is one thing that, Todd, you have done very, very well. You have always upheld the dignity of the office in a way that we are all grateful for. So congratulations, and thank you for everything that you’ve done on all of our behalf.

Applause.

Yes, go ahead. I’ll finish there.

Applause.

Is anyone going to request unanimous consent?

We have with us in the Speaker’s Gallery some very special guests: Todd Decker’s wife, Zina; his daughter, Natalie, and son-in-law, Andrew; and Clerk’s office staff past and present, Grace, Lucie, Nadège, Gabriela, Peter, Julia and Meghan. We’re delighted to have you here as well.

I want to thank the members for those eloquent tributes, and on behalf of the office of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, I thank you, Mr. Decker. It seems strange to be addressing the back of your head. Thank you for your devoted service to the people of Ontario and their Legislative Assembly. Farewell, dear and faithful friend.

Applause.

I have personally appreciated Mike’s steady hand over the last half a year and the leadership he’s provided to the Sergeant-at-Arms and precinct properties division of the Legislative Assembly.

As of June 19, Mike will reassume his role as director of the Legislative Protective Service, which he has been instrumental in building up over the past several years. I know his advice, support and the depth of experience that he has will be essential to our new incoming Sergeant-at-Arms and to the ongoing success of the Legislative Protective Service.

I want to ask all members to join me in thanking Mike Civil for his dedicated service to the assembly.

Applause.