We give thanks for the life and public service of Lily Oddie Munro.

Today we are honoured to remember and pay tribute to the former member of our provincial Legislature, the late Mr. Richard Patten, who was the MPP for Ottawa Centre during the 34th, 36th, 37th and 38th Parliaments.

Joining us in the Speaker’s gallery are Mr. Patten’s friends Barbara Jordan and her husband, Allan Morrison. Mr. Patten’s family is watching this tribute from home this afternoon.

I recognize the member for Nepean.

It’s an honour to rise today as the member for Ottawa Centre, remembering the life of Richard Patten. Friends who are present here, friends who are watching this from home—I agree with the member from Nepean. This was a giant figure in our community. I regret to say I never knew him very well personally—

He was someone whose presence certainly lives on—serving as MPP for Ottawa Centre from 1987 to 1990, serving again from 1995 to 2007.

I could, as the member from Nepean did—and I will just list it briefly for the record—talk about the fact that this is the politician who helped save the Aberdeen Pavilion from the wrecking ball. If you ever get the chance to see it at Lansdowne Market, look at it; it’s a beautiful structure.

This is the politician who helped drive the fundraising structure by being the president of the CHEO Foundation for our children’s hospital, which, as current CEO Alex Munter tells me, has made an enormous difference today.

But when I think about Richard Patten—as the member for Ottawa Centre previous to me, Yasir Naqvi, told me recently—I think about this gentleman as a citizen of the world. What does it mean to be a citizen of the world? Well, Oxfam, a charity with which many of us are familiar, calls a citizen of the world “someone who is aware of and understands the wider world—and their place in it.” As a citizen of the world, “they take an active role in their community and work with others to make our planet”—not just their city, their province or their country—a “more peaceful, sustainable and fairer” place. Why do I think about that with the life of Richard Patten? With what I was inspired to read based upon some leads that luckily were furnished to me by a family member, Sheila Laursen, who worked for the Montreal YMCA and whose friends Scott Haldane, Sol Kasimer and Bill Pigott worked with Richard Patten, I think about someone who was an accomplished athlete, who spent an entire summer in the late 1970s teaching physical health and education to Palestinian refugees in Syria, in Lebanon, in Jordan and in Gaza, and after that experience went on to continue to talk about the plight of the Palestinian people. It is difficult to talk about that plight today. Politicians are afraid sometimes to talk about the suffering of the Palestinian people, who live in open-air prisons, who suffer some of the most egregious human rights abuses every single day. It is dangerous to do that now, but Richard Patten did this in the late 1980s. And he went on to live in Guyana for two years and talk about the suffering of the Guyanese people.

He worked in friendship with Indigenous communities across this country, not through a charity model or a pity model, but a respect model, nation to nation, thinking about how he, through his dense connections, could use the platform of a politician or the platform of a major community organization like the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario to pay it forward and to help others who are fighting hard to make ends meet.

Why do we become a global citizen? I think people decide to become a global citizen in politics because they look beyond their city, their riding, their province, their country, and they see the world for what it is: a world in which eight people—eight people—today collectively own as much as the poorest half of the whole world, 3.5 billion people; a world in which the poorest billion on this planet account for 1% of global consumption but the richest billion account for 72% of global consumption.

Article 13 of the United Nations charter of human rights says that everyone has the right to leave their country. But what we know is that 3% of people around the world actually live outside of their country of origin, and we have spent decades putting up borders and obstacles to stop people from enriching other societies with their talents.

Thankfully, it is part of the Canadian story that we have tried to create a place that is welcoming, that says to people from around the world, “Come here, build your dream here, help us make a better place here.” I would like to think that the inspiration for that ideal comes from the Indigenous peoples who shepherded and walked over this land for generations, who themselves were welcoming.

That’s what I think of when I think of a giant like Richard Patten—someone who was a global citizen, someone who worked hard for his city, and someone who said that it’s not enough to work for your riding and we have to use the resources and the skills we have to make our world a better place.

Thank you so much to friends who are here and to friends watching for all of your work and for lending Richard to us.

It’s an honour to stand today, on behalf of the Ontario Liberal caucus, to say a few words of tribute for our friend and our colleague Richard Patten, the MPP for Ottawa Centre from 1989 to 1990, re-elected in 1995, again in 1999 and again in 2003. He served as a minister in the Peterson government, and in opposition he was the critic for education, which was one of his passions.

The essence of Richard Patten was community building. He was always searching for a way to build his community up—and as we’ll hear a little later, his community was much larger than just Ottawa Centre, which was dear to his heart.

As the member from Ottawa Centre just said, he helped save Ottawa’s Aberdeen Pavilion from the wrecking ball, which is really, I would say, a nice unnamed monument to his efforts as a public servant. It’s still there today. It houses a farmers’ market. It’s a beautiful building. If you’re ever in Ottawa Centre and don’t make it to Ottawa South, make sure you go by the Aberdeen Pavilion.

He was also part of the team that helped save CHEO’s cardiac unit. At the time, in 2002, the government of the day wanted to close down the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario’s cardiac surgery unit. He was part of the team that helped save that.

I know he was very proud of that accomplishment, but not as proud as he was of a piece of legislation that he worked hard to pass here in this assembly: Brian’s Law. It was in honour of sportscaster Brian Smith, who was shot and killed in 1995 by a man who desperately needed treatment. That law, after it passed, led to early assessment of people in danger of hurting themselves or others and also led to the thing we know as community orders. That was an important improvement in the management of mental health in our communities. It took a long time to get this bill through, but it showed Richard’s drive to try to make the lives of others better.

As I said earlier, Richard’s world, his community, wasn’t just Ottawa Centre—and as we heard the member from Ottawa Centre say, it did extend past.

This was Richard as a young man—he worked at summer day camps for the YMCA and later on in different branches of the Y when he was at Sir George Williams University.

One summer semester, he worked with Palestinian youth in refugee camps in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Gaza under the auspices of UNRA and the World Alliance of YMCAs.

After he graduated from Sir George with a bachelor of arts, with a major in history and the philosophy of religion and a certificate in applied social science, he became the YMCA director in Montreal.

In 1969, he accepted a two-year posting to Georgetown, Guyana, as a trainer consultant to the Guyanese national council of YMCAs. His mission was to manage a process of reorienting the organization and to train staff across the newly independent nation.

In 1971, Richard became the director of international programs for the Montreal YMCA. With the expelling of Asians from Uganda, Richard negotiated an arrangement with the federal government to work with YMCAs and the voluntary sector across Canada to provide support for thousands of Ismailis in language, training, culture and job readiness, and to provide clothing and shelter.

In 1975, after all of this, Richard moved to Ottawa and became the director of international programs for the Canadian National Council of YMCAs. From there, he negotiated with CIDA and received funding to establish international development projects throughout the world in a three-way partnership between the recipient nation, supported by a branch of Canadian YMCA and CIDA.

I worked with Richard. I never had the pleasure of sitting in this Legislature with him. I knew him for about 30 years and worked with him for about 15 of those.

I wanted to reach out to my predecessor in this seat, Premier Dalton McGuinty, the former member for Ottawa South, because he spent a lot of time with Richard. Here’s what he had to say:

Richard’s commitment to public service, to making the world a better place by helping others, shone through everything he did as an MPP and in his years before and after. He cared—a lot. He found joy in service, especially in helping those who couldn’t help themselves. Ontario, and especially Ottawa, are better places because of Richard’s kindness and commitment to his fellow human beings.

I know his wife, Penny, is at home listening, and I want to say to Penny—well, first off, I didn’t meet Richard first; I met Penny. I was in another life. I was managing a store that was in their neighbourhood. We got to talking, as can happen sometimes with me. She knew our daughter was having a diet-related challenge, and she lent me a book. This is about 40 years ago. She was very kind. She said, “You should read this.” Penny, I want to say I’m sorry that I never got that book back to you. I still remember it, and I still have the feeling that I owe you something. Actually, we all owe you something. You shared Richard with this assembly, with Ottawa Centre, with this province, with the world, and that was a lot to ask of you. It’s not easy to be a partner, a spouse, of a political person, and I want to thank you, on behalf of everyone here and everyone Richard helped, for being that strong and supportive partner you were.

Applause.

The member for Ottawa Centre.