Speaker, I am truly honoured to rise today to pay tribute to the late Honourable David C. Onley, who served faithfully as the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario from 2007 to 2014. Mr. Onley was, among many other things, the first provincial Lieutenant Governor with a physical disability and the second-longest serving since Confederation, a father, a grandfather, a husband, a change-maker, a broadcaster, a public servant and an advocate.

I’d again like to welcome Mr. Onley’s wonderful family: his wife Ruth Ann and Robert his son who are joining us here today. Thank you for being here.

David Onley is remembered as one of the most extraordinary figures in Ontario’s rich political history. He contracted polio at the age of three, which made walking a mammoth task. As his family shared with us recently at his funeral, that also left him with a lifetime of pain. Yet when he was sworn in as Lieutenant Governor, he walked up the stairs in front of us today and sat in the Speaker’s chair. That determination and grit transcended to all areas of David’s life. When David saw closed doors, he opened them, and when they couldn’t be opened, he made sure they were made accessible—not just temporarily, not just for him, but for everyone who passed through after him.

Former Toronto mayor David Crombie and I were speaking recently about Mr. Onley, and he reminded me of his son’s reflection at his father’s disability and desire to live a full life. He said, “He lived a life of courage every day,” something we should all aspire to.

Mr. Onley lived a life dedicated to service and continually fought to make this province work for the disabled. He once remarked that accessibility was, “much, much more than just the curb cuts and wheelchair parking spots and automatic doors and ramps.... It’s that which enables people to achieve their full potential.” He shared the joy in the passing of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act and was dedicated to using every tool he had to sound the alarm when he felt the province was lagging in fulfilling its legal obligations, and in 2018 he was asked to do the official AODA review.

I was speaking with disability advocate Sarah Jama yesterday—she’s a disability justice advocate who, yes, is running for a seat in this House—and I couldn’t help but ask her what stood out for her about the legacy of David Onley, as somebody who is a disability justice advocate and also a person who uses a mobility device. She said she felt it incumbent on all of us not to let his incredible work pass with him. She says, “We owe him and the millions of disabled people in this province the implementation of every single one of his 2019 recommendations.” Tough words—and she’ll have tougher words too, but I leave her to bring them to this place. And I would say that, if she were to take her seat among us here, or the next person who sits here with a physical disability, she will have been well served by the path that he forged.

I want to share, Speaker, that I was honoured to attend Mr. Onley’s funeral just a few weeks ago. It was an extraordinary event. It was held in the very church where Mr. Onley and his wife Ruth Ann met and was attended by a who’s who of leaders of all levels of government, past and present; former colleagues in the media; of course, his beloved family; but also hundreds and hundreds of disability advocates, people with disabilities.

I spoke yesterday with Anthony Hylton, his chief of staff when he was Lieutenant Governor, about the time and effort necessary to ensure that that church and service would be truly accessible for this occasion: larger font in the programs, an area for people in mobility devices, the book of condolences had to be accessible to everyone, programs in Braille, screens with captioning and on and on.

Mr. Hylton called David Onley “one of the greatest people I ever met”—and he’s met pretty great people—and he shared that he would receive a call from Mr. Onley every January 30, the anniversary of the day he asked him to be his chief of staff, becoming the first Black person to fill this role anywhere in Canada.

Anthony Hylton also remarked that Mr. Onley was a deeply religious man. His family and his pastor talked about this throughout their service. It was fitting, then, that his coffin was led out of the church by his pastor, now himself needing a mobility device, on David’s scooter.

As Mr. Onley had said often, most people are one fall or one accident away from really understanding how inaccessible places were for him. He lives on in his immortalized words in Hansard, in the results he achieved for the people of Ontario and in the lives and memories of his loving family and the friends who had the pleasure of knowing him. Thank you for sharing him with our province.