Speaker, if you seek it, you will find unanimous consent to allow members to make statements in remembrance of the late Mr. Daryl Kramp, MPP for Hastings–Lennox and Addington, with five minutes allotted to His Majesty’s loyal opposition, five minutes allotted to the independent members as a group and five minutes allotted to His Majesty’s government.

It’s a great honour to rise this morning and remember the extraordinary life of Daryl Kramp. I’m one of the people in this building that comes from the great region of eastern Ontario. As an NDP politician, I’m proud to say in this place that I considered Daryl Kramp a friend and a shining example of the kind of kindness we want to see in our politics at a time when so much in this world is asking us to beat each other up all of the time.

In the time I have, I’d like to talk in my experience about Daryl’s kindness, his courage and the community he built, which I got to experience first-hand when I headed down Highway 7 and went to his celebration of life.

To begin with kindness, it’s remarkable to meet someone who clearly was a mentor for his caucus, but who found time to be a mentor for every other member in this place. The anecdotes were overwhelming as this celebration of life this morning approached. I’ll just recount one I talked about briefly in the House. We were having a very tense debate as the government first came to office in June 2018. We were convening over the summer. Daryl and I shared offices on the third floor of this building. I was up there hanging my head because I was finding, as I told him, the heat in this place to be a little intense. He put his hand on my shoulder, he looked me in the eye and he said, “Joel, let that heat power you to work for your people.” Amen to that.

I remember, when I was at the celebration of life in the beautiful town of Madoc, hearing people talk about Daryl caring most about getting things done for the community and caring less about who got credit for it. I want to remember the recent words of the mayor of Belleville, Mitch Panciuk, who said, “It is hard to imagine a federal or provincial representative who has been so instrumental in the development of our city in the 206-year history of Belleville.” My goodness.

Daryl was kind not only to me but to many others. But what I also learned in parsing through the research the good people of the legislative branch gave us is that he was one of those politicians who was also gracious in defeat and victory, having contested nine elections at all levels of Canadian politics.

My friend Nate Smelle, who was the provincial candidate for our party in 2018, walked into Daryl’s victory party in 2018. Daryl made a point, from the microphone, of saying, “Now, Nate, I want you to know that if NDP supporters in this riding have any concerns, they need to bring them straight to me,” in the middle of the celebration for him and his victory.

I also note that when Bruce Knutson lost to Daryl in 2004, he made the opportunity to say as Bruce walked across the street, “Bruce, I know that walk and how it feels like. I know what it feels like to walk from your campaign office, having lost a campaign, and walk into the victor’s office. It’s a long walk, but I appreciate you and I appreciate the time you’ve taken in our community to work hard for community.”

Mr. Kramp turned a riding that had been Liberal for 18 years Conservative. He went on to continue to serve in 2004, winning 2006, 2008 and 2011, losing only in a wave election in 2015 and being elected again in 2018. The people don’t lie. They saw something in him. I think all of us saw it, too.

Mr. Kramp and I shared an affection for the Christian faith. We were both raised in the Christian faith. Matthew 17:15 to 17 reads, “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits.” When my minister was explaining what that passage meant to me as a young man, he said, “Judge someone not by their words, Joel. Judge someone by their actions. What are they prepared to do? You will know the tree by the fruit that it bears.”

When I had occasion to go to the celebration of life in Madoc, I saw an orchard of fruits. I saw a church filled to the gills with supporters singing The Old Rugged Cross, Amazing Grace and How Great Thou Art. The member from Bay of Quinte tells me there was an overflow room down the street of people there. We will be judged and remembered by the community we built, and that’s what I remember with Mr. Kramp. He’s someone we all should look up to. In a time of polarization and anger, let us remember what he stood for.

Thank you, Kramp family, for sharing him with us.

It’s an honour to rise today to pay tribute to my friend and former colleague Daryl Kramp, the MPP for Hastings–Lennox and Addington. First and foremost, Daryl was a kind and decent person, representing all that’s right and good about politics, somebody who went out of his way to check in on you and made sure you knew that he cared about you.

Daryl reached out to me shortly after we were elected in 2018 and he wanted me to know that he might be new to Queen’s Park, but he was not new to politics, and if I needed advice, I could reach out any time. We both agreed that we would work across party lines, and that’s a promise Daryl kept. It was during our time on committee that we really got to know each other, before and after committee meetings, having many conversations about how we could make Parliament work better. And it was when I was down, after losing a vote on what I thought was a reasonable amendment, Daryl would walk up to me, give me a pat on the back and a pep talk.

Daryl and I formed a stronger bond when it was my turn to reach out to him and say how much I enthusiastically supported his private member’s Bill 216, the Food Literacy for Students Act. I, along with many local food and farming advocates, were strong supporters of Daryl’s bill, and it was my turn to repay the favour whenever he got down and needed some words of encouragement when he was frustrated that his bill was hitting some roadblocks.

Our last conversation was about Daryl’s health and Daryl’s bill. This past December, I was walking through the hallways just before we were going to rise, and the light was weird and this tall gentleman started walking towards me and I couldn’t quite see who it was. And this voice said, “Mike, it’s Daryl—Daryl Kramp. Do you have a minute to talk?” And in my mind, I didn’t, because I was late. I knew I was late, but something told me to stop and have a conversation. We talked about his health. Most of all, we talked about his family. We talked about our relationship and how much he appreciated my support for his bill. But most of all, he wanted to ask me how I was doing. In the midst of his health battle, he was more concerned about how I was doing. So, Speaker: Daryl, a kind and decent man indeed.

I want to say to the Kramp family, thank you for sharing such a remarkable person with us. His legacy lives on in our hearts.

It is a tremendous honour to speak and recognize my friend and colleague Daryl Kramp, and I want to thank my colleagues from across the aisle for their heartfelt tributes to Kramper as well today.

Three quarters of our caucus would love the opportunity to stand here and tell stories about Daryl Kramp, because there are so many, and I will try and limit it to just a few here today.

Welcome to the family. I’m not going to look there, because I won’t be able to get through this; this is going to be one of the hardest tributes that I’ve ever had to deliver. But again, I am extremely honoured to do so. His family is here, his friends, his campaign workers, his staff. And Denise Gray is here. I don’t think she was introduced, Speaker, but Denise is here.

He would always say his staff don’t work for him; they work with him, and it’s one of the things, one of the many lessons, that I learned from Daryl Kramp. He was a tremendous role model. He was a mentor for me. He was certainly a mentor for this guy, MPP Bresee, who holds the Hastings–Lennox and Addington seat that Daryl held in this Legislature for the four years that he was here.

While he certainly was steadfast in his service to community, Kramper always maintained his priorities were faith, family and friends—in that order—and your presence here today is a testament to just how he lived his life.

When we speak about political legacies, and we do it all the time, we often talk of community leaders as giants, and Daryl was a giant. He was quite literally a giant, most often a friendly one—I’ve seen him get mad a few times, however—a larger-than-life personality, an uproarious laugh. I look back at some pictures of us together in our time as MPP and MP, and I think, in three quarters of the pictures, we weren’t just having a laugh; we were having all of those all-out belly laughs, because he was just one of those guys. He made everyone around him welcome—and that’s regardless of their party affiliation, Joel. It might not be what you’d expect from one of the most imposing fastball pitchers that Hastings county has ever seen, a hardened cop or a hockey promoter who brought the big, bad Russians to town on more than one occasion.

He and Carol Ann, the love of his life, hosted people at Moira Lake. His entire family lives on that lake, south of Madoc.

He loved watching his grandkids. Some of them are here today. It was funny; when Bill Walker and I had a chance to go out for chicken wings and beer with him a couple of weeks ago, he was wearing a Yale baseball cap, because that’s where his granddaughter Anna Belle was a goaltender, playing hockey. We made fun of Daryl wearing an Ivy League baseball cap, as you can understand. But he loved watching kids play hockey and volleyball.

And he enjoyed music. His favourite song, I think, was the national anthem. If you ever heard him—I’m still a little deaf in this ear from standing next to him while he was singing the national anthem, because he really belted it out.

He was a real treat. If you had the pleasure of visiting his former restaurant, Two Loons, right across the lake from where he lived, Daryl would cook up his famous chicken wings, and quite often, they had the infamous Friday-night seafood buffet. The whole family worked there. Daryl was just an incredible host, just a friendly guy, and quite often, he would be holding court at the restaurant as well. Of course, they continued that tradition at their home, with people coming in all the time, day or night.

I remember 2018, when Daryl came out of his short-lived retirement to run provincially, owing to his sense of obligation to see the books balanced and wanting to be a part of Team Ford or Ford Nation here in Ontario. He took that new Hastings–Lennox and Addington riding with 50% of the vote. I’m told he was beaming as his girls updated him throughout the night on the polls as they were coming in.

I was busy in Bay of Quinte that night, so I wasn’t there, but I’ve seen this team in action on election night before. It was 2004 when Bruce Knutson was running. Former Chrétien Agriculture Minister Lyle Vanclief decided that he was going to retire. He was a Prince Edward county farmer. He didn’t reoffer for election, so Bruce stepped up for the Liberals. I was a news reporter at Quinte Broadcasting at the time and I was assigned to cover the Prince Edward–Hastings riding. The Liberal and Kramp campaign offices were literally across the grocery store plaza parking lot—like, Liberals on one side, Conservatives on the other. So yes, while it was a long walk that night for Mr. Knutson, it was actually a very short walk.

But the funny part of the story is, expecting to see another Liberal victory, because it was a Liberal stronghold for quite a time, I was positioned at the campaign office of the Liberal candidate. The early poll results started to come in and they were quite favourable for the Grits in Prince Edward–Hastings that night. So I listened to, and recorded on my tape recorder, a victory speech from the Liberal candidate. I walked across the parking lot to get what I thought was going to be a concession speech from Daryl Kramp. And there was a lot of scurrying going on. The family was there, of course. They decided, “You know, we’re going to wait until the north votes come in.” Kramp was the king of the north in Hastings, and he cruised to victory and really started the political legacy in Prince Edward–Hastings. A lot of those team members are here, and they’ve been introduced by you, Speaker, and they’ve stuck by Daryl Kramp all these years. So, that night, I recorded two victory speeches and a concession speech as well.

When he was first at Queen’s Park, I had an invite from Paul Miller, the long-time NDP representative from Hamilton, to come up to his office and join him for a couple of cocktails, which we tend to do from time to time. Because Daryl was new here, I asked if Daryl could come up. I wanted him to meet some of the members opposite. It turned out that Daryl had worked in Hamilton East–Stoney Creek as an OPP officer when he faced off against some of the toughest biker gangs in the Hammer and organized crime down there. It turns out that Paul Miller knew all the same people that Daryl did. I remember sitting there just listening to the two of them go on for hours and hours telling stories. That was Daryl Kramp; that really was Daryl Kramp. Needless to say, he got to know a lot of the people on the opposite side of the bench just as well as in his own caucus.

This isn’t to say that Daryl couldn’t be tough when he needed to be. You always knew where you he stood with him. When he believed in something, he fought hard for it. He was crucial—and Don Bonter is going to put a big smile on his face here—to the construction of a two-lane bridge joining Prince Edward county to Brighton. They were going to build a one-lane bridge; can you imagine that? Don Bonter and Daryl Kramp went toe to toe on that one and they fought for that bridge.

He dug in his heels for equitable rural funding, better broadband, the Eastern Ontario Regional Network. A large part of Daryl’s legacy, as you say, is he built large parts of Belleville and Prince Edward–Hastings.

He also travelled to China a lot, which wasn’t mentioned this morning. He negotiated a number of trade deals on behalf of Prime Minister Harper. As a matter of fact, Daryl Kramp is responsible for bringing the pandas from China to the Toronto Zoo. That’s actually a fact. They had a 10-year stint as residents at the Toronto Zoo. They’ve since had to be returned. But often, and Carol Ann will know this, when Daryl would be in China, and sometimes the Prime Minister would be there, they could care less about seeing the Prime Minister. They only wanted to see their friend Daryl Kramp.

His work with local agriculture producers and Minister Lecce ensured that food literacy will be on Ontario’s education curriculum. He secured long-term-care beds across his riding, including in his beloved hometown of Madoc, and the reconstruction of what’s known as “Kramp crossing,” which is an old train track that joins the trail system to the village of Madoc across Moira Lake.

One could argue, though, that his biggest challenge here at Queen’s Park was keeping our massive caucus that was elected in 2018—as our caucus chair. There’s now a big guy here, his dear friend Will Bouma, who’s filling that chair, and I know he learned a lot from Kramper.

Kramper’s leadership tied with his well-curated motivational quotes—he loved his quotes, we all know that—and I’m going to wrap up shortly, but I hope you’re entertained.

It was a different caucus meeting where one of my greatest memories of Daryl Kramp came to pass. Now, I wasn’t there, but Minister Calandra and Minister Rickford were there. And it happened in his last year of an 11-year run on Parliament Hill as part of the Harper government. We all remember the day, October 22, 2014, when a masked gunman fatally injured Corporal Nathan Cirillo. He moved west uphill on Rideau Street, entered Centre Block just below the Peace Tower. The gunman and security guard sparred. There were gunshots ringing out in the hallway, and just to the left was the Conservative caucus meeting that was under way in that caucus room. And I’ve heard this from many people, Daryl put his training, put that booming voice to work in a power of persuasion. He ordered that the Prime Minister be put in a closet in that caucus room. He barricaded the doors with his colleagues, and they had flagpoles as spears ready just in case the perpetrator came through that door.

He’s quoted as saying, “We didn’t have any idea what was there, if it was one or more, or what the armament was. Once the whole myriad of shots started to ring out, believe me, the activity of barricading the door stepped up quickly—almost instantaneously.”

Daryl and his colleagues were actually heroic that day. He said that returning to the House of Commons the next day was very difficult because they were in lockdown for hours and hours the day that that happened. But he said it was “probably one of the finest days” as all parties came together and rallied as Canadians first—and that’s how he lived his life.

And so, how proud he must have been following that to see his daughter Shelby, who’s with us today, take her place in the House of Commons in 2021 as he was deciding to finish his lengthy political career.

And as was mentioned, Daryl battled cancer in his later years as he served, and I know he had some really, really tough days. Most mere mortals probably wouldn’t have survived the 12-plus-hour surgery that he underwent and then the ensuing radiation treatments. But it was his faith, his family and his friends that pulled him through. He recovered. He was the same gentle giant with the big personality, smiles and laughter.

So we will remember Daryl Kramp, and it seems only fitting that I end with a quote. That’s what Kramper was all about. This one is Ernest Hemingway: “Every man’s life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another.”

Daryl lived an incredible life. He fought off death as long as he could, and he was dignified in doing it. And why wouldn’t he with the love that he had all around him: Carol Ann at his side, an adoring family of daughters and sons-in-law and grandkids and an entire community in his corner. It was a well-lived life.

We thank his family, of course, for sharing him with us. He made a mark not just in Madoc and in Prince Edward–Hastings or Ontario, but in Canada. He indeed made the world a better place.

Applause.

I want to thank the members for their heartfelt and eloquent tributes as we have given thanks for the life and public service of Daryl Kramp.

It is now time for oral questions.

The Minister of Health.

Let me start by extending my condolences as well. Thank you to MPP Daryl Kramp’s family who are here with us today.

I’d also like to start by congratulating our deputy leader, the MPP from Kiiwetinoong, on a truly historic change to the standing orders. I look forward to hearing him speak in his language more often in this place.

My question is for the Premier. Today, Ontarians will be watching as this government lays out its priorities for the upcoming year. People are looking for hope, for a commitment that things are going to get better. One thing they don’t want to see is more of their hard-earned dollars going towards private, for-profit health care.

Last year, the government doubled funding for private, for-profit clinics while public operating rooms were collecting dust. To the Premier: Will you finally properly fund our existing public operating rooms, or are we going to be seeing the government handing over more contracts to for-profit clinics?

People are looking for reliable health care; for accessible mental health supports; safe, comfortable long-term and home care. How can people trust this government to deliver on their health care when they’ve clearly prioritized private profits over public needs?

So my question to the Premier is: Does he understand that Ontario’s economic prosperity depends on a strong public health care system? And can he commit today that not a single health care dollar in the budget is going to go to for-profit health care?

Interjections.