It’s an incredible honour today to be able to pay tribute to Mr. Gary Fox on behalf of the official opposition. I never had the opportunity to meet him, but on reading the research, I found out that we travelled many of the same halls. As a former dairy farmer, I started farming when NAFTA and GATT were huge, huge issues. Many people stopped dairy farming because of NAFTA and GATT. He played a role in helping us.

He was on the board of directors of the federation of agriculture, as was I. I know how much work is involved in being in agriculture politics. He was on many more boards. I was on the board of the Dairy Farmers of Ontario; he was on many others. We know how much work is involved.

But I’d like to take a couple of quotes and take some license and perhaps expand on them: “Gary was a determined man with conviction. He could be a hard old county farmer on days, but most that knew him and loved him knew him as someone that just loved to visit and listen.” And I’d like to take the “hard old county farmer,” because one thing that farmers do on a daily basis—they deal with life and death. They make choices of which animal stays and which animal isn’t productive enough. And it’s not that they don’t love that animal; they love them all. It’s because they won’t be successful, but they have to make those decisions.

When we get here, sometimes those decisions—we seem hard. But we’re used to making them, and I think that that came across in that quote.

Mr. Fox suffered and fought cancer for five years, and farmers—I don’t think there’s anyone, because they deal with such hard things, who appreciates every day that the sun comes up that they get to be with their family, get to be on their farm, get to do the things they love. I don’t know anyone who appreciates that more.

The final one that I’d like to touch on—and I’m really going to take licence with this, so hopefully you will allow me to do so. We lost a good old country boy. I know what a good old country boy is, and I think it’s an incredible compliment, but many might not know.

I’m going to tell a version—I’m really dating myself—of a Little Johnny joke. Little Johnny is the country boy—my name is John, so I’ll use myself. It’s grade 1, and the teacher says, “A farmer has 10 sheep in a pen. There’s a hole in the fence, and one sheep goes through the hole. How many sheep does the farmer have?” Little Johnny has got this. Teacher reluctantly asks Little Johnny, and he says, “Teacher, the farmer has zero sheep.” Someone else put their hand up. City Susie says, “Teacher, 10 minus one equals nine.” And the teacher says, “That’s correct. Johnny, you don’t know math.” Johnny is a country boy; he’s polite. He thinks to himself, “Teacher, you don’t know sheep.” And that is the definition of a country boy.

To be that, “We lost a good old country boy”—I can’t think of a higher tribute to someone who has served this province, served agriculture, and who his family has shared with the rest of us to the benefit of all Ontarians.