It’s truly an honour today to be able to rise and pay tribute to Gordon Miller on behalf of the official opposition. I’d like to welcome his family here today and thank them for his service.

When I was asked to do this, I wondered—and as soon as I started doing the research, I knew why I was asked: because in the parliamentary record, his occupation is listed as a farmer. And if my occupation is listed some day as a farmer, it will be the proudest day of my life. I would like to commend him for that.

It’s already been described—I’m not going to go through it again—the long list of things that Mr. Miller did. So I’m going to use a few quotes. I never had the opportunity to meet him, but there are a few interesting quotes from people who did know him.

From a former Premier, David Peterson: “He was a specialist on rural and community issues. He knew everybody. He was just the quintessential good neighbour”—because he was a farmer. People who aren’t from a farming community might not know it, but farmers are very competitive: Who has the nicest crops? Who has the most milk per cow? But when something happens, they gel and help each other. They are all quintessential good neighbours. I have never met a farmer I didn’t like. They don’t always agree with me and I didn’t always agree with them, but farmers are quintessential good neighbours.

Another quote from Mr. Peterson: “He could crush you with his big hands. You look at him and there’s a farmer.” Well, we all—farmers all have interesting hands. But I’m sure that every farm community has got a couple of people who have those big hands. When they get you in a handshake, you can just feel the power. I’m sure Mr. Miller was one of those. Something—I’m just doing this anecdotally—I have never met someone with that huge handshake who wasn’t a really friendly person. But sometimes—I have to describe this handshake, and I’m sure Mr. Miller has done this: It’s the friendly handshake, but if they want to send a bit of a message, it’s a bit painful. I’m sure that Mr. Miller did that too.

Another one from Mr. Peterson: “If you ever thought he was a bumbling farmer you were wrong because he ... was one guy in my caucus who would tell me I was full of baloney.” Now, when I read that the first time, I thought: Okay, who does Mr. Peterson think a bumbling farmer is? But anyway, I think what he was trying to say is that farmers aren’t all parliamentarians and aren’t all diplomatic, but they are very direct. They’re take-charge people. They want to get things done. They deal with nature, so they understand they’re not going to win every battle, but they understand they have to fight every day. And those are qualities that farmers like Mr. Miller, I’m sure, brought to this House.

I would like to close with something that I read: He passed away peacefully in front of his fireplace just three days short of his 97th birthday, on his farm, on the road named after him, the Gordon Miller Trail. And with all of those accomplishments, the whole list of accomplishments, his greatest was that he was a farmer. That is a life well lived.

And you can’t be a farmer alone; a farmer takes a family. Thank you very much for sharing Mr. Miller with us.