- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Regina—Qu'Appelle
- Saskatchewan
- Voting Attendance: 61%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $195,980.34
- Government Page
- Sep/17/24 3:21:58 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Conservative caucus, I would like to thank you for those very kind words and a fitting tribute to a man who held a position in the Speakership during part of his tenure here.
This is a difficult task, to try to sum up in just a few minutes the impact that a man like Chuck Strahl had on Parliament, on politics and on not only the Conservative Party but the Conservative movement as a broader whole. However, it is truly an honour for me to do that, as imperfectly as I may.
We all know Chuck's official biography, of course. He was first elected to Parliament in 1993 and re-elected another five times. Over his 18 years as an MP, he served as a third party critic, a whip, a House leader for the official opposition, a minister of the Crown and a Deputy Speaker. Chuck knew that if a position he filled was important, it was first and foremost a reflection of the awesome responsibility of the position. There is such a difference between a man of great integrity and others who view titles and positions as ways to aggrandize themselves and make it a reflection of the individual rather than the position.
Chuck, despite the high offices, never lost touch with his roots. He was a logger from the B.C. interior. He brought a healthy dose of common sense to public life. Speaking of logging, Chuck was a builder. I would often look with great envy at the pictures the current member for Chilliwack—Hope would send me of the latest project he and his father were working on around the house. Being someone who was not gifted with those types of abilities, I would always feel great awe and admiration that Chuck was able to do that.
However, he did not just build things out of wood and metal. He helped build a movement. Chuck was one of the major architects of the wonderful experience that was the Reform Party of Canada. Even though he was from B.C., he helped light that prairie fire that kept burning and spread eastward to help give Canadians hope that power in Canada could one day truly be restored to the people and out of the hands of the elites who had caused so much damage at the time.
We think today, in our modern lives as members of Parliament, about what that was like back then. We all know how hard it is sometimes to organize events, but we have wonderful tools like texting and social media. We can post things on a website. Chuck and the Reform Party team were able to pack church basements, town halls and legions with hundreds and hundreds of people just by using the telephone, maybe some radio messages and those famous newsletters we all got through fax machines. It was incredible. It speaks perhaps not so much to their technological prowess, or the organizational abilities of people like Chuck, but of the message they were carrying and the hope they were giving to Canadians in every corner of the country.
Chuck was a strong family man, a gifted communicator and a natural-born leader who projected honour, integrity and faithfulness in all that he did. We could chat with Chuck for hours and he would rarely brag about any of his political achievements or the offices that he filled. Instead, he was most likely to brag about his province, his community or, most often, his family. We could tell what motivated Chuck just by talking to him for a few minutes.
Chuck inspired so many young members of our movement to take up the fight. He was a happy warrior. It was easy to follow someone like Chuck because he did it with a smile on his face, motivated more by hope and what was possible than by what riled him up. However, if we ever did rile him up, we would know about it.
During my first Parliament, Chuck was the Deputy Speaker. I was a new MP at the age of 25. Let me say that Chuck's deep, baritone voice would leave us in no doubt if we ever found ourselves on the wrong side of the chair.
It was wonderful to work with him in his next role, as minister of agriculture, as he started the process to give western Canadian farmers the freedom to market their own agricultural products.
For those of us who may have come to politics a little later, it is sometimes hard to imagine that for decades, western Canadian farmers had no control of the product of their summers' worth of labour. Instead, they had to trust the government to do that for them. However, Chuck, as was long a part of his mandate, helped lay the groundwork for what would eventually be the successful abolition of the monopoly of the Canadian Wheat Board.
Chuck played a pivotal role as minister of Indian affairs, as it was called then, building the path for Stephen Harper's momentous 2008 apology to former students of Indian residential schools. While there has been the outpouring of messages of support and condolences that we would expect from many people in politics, the tributes from first nations communities across the country are, I know, also very meaningful to the Strahl family, as a reflection of the sincere and deep relationship that Chuck made with the people with whom he worked so hard to address their issues.
As minister of transport and infrastructure, Chuck played the role of builder once again, as he was instrumental in delivering much of Canada's economic action plan. A lot of Canada's recent infrastructure may well have a link back to Chuck the road builder.
He leaves behind Deb, his loving wife of almost 50 years, and four children, Karina, Loni, Kyla and the hon. member for Chilliwack—Hope, someone who, as all of us know, has inherited that deep baritone voice.
When we talk about integrity, I think it is important to think about what that meant for Chuck. Chuck would often say that sometimes politics can get complicated because we make it overly complicated, and often what we need to do is just take a step back and think about our first principles: why we got into it in the first place or what we told our constituents at the first meeting, maybe when we were running for the nomination, or on our first election night.
Ottawa can twist and turn things. The bubble is real, and it can affect how we look at things. Chuck would always be able to slice through all that, simplify the complicated and bring it right back to what it would mean for the Canadian people. That shone through every single thing Chuck did.
I know we are all going to miss him, those of us who were wise enough to seek his counsel. Having Chuck on speed dial or as a contact was a smart thing to do for anybody in a leadership position. Chuck was very kind to chair my campaign when I was running for the leadership of the party. I would often call him for advice or wisdom or to run things by him. There was great comfort in knowing that I had someone like that in my life, almost that I could offload some of the stress or overthinking on various issues.
Once again, my deepest sympathies and condolences go to Deb, Karina, Loni, and Kyla. I am going to break protocol here; Mark, I give our very deepest condolences and best wishes to your family as you recover from this tremendous loss.
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- Feb/26/24 1:19:06 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this is what Liberals do. They attack others for the very things that they are guilty of themselves. If this member wants to talk about respecting this institution, we can talk about how the access to information commissioner has said that it has never been harder to get information from a government than it has under the current Prime Minister.
How about the fact that the government decided not to fund the Auditor General appropriately to do her important work of uncovering Liberal waste and mismanagement? How about all the times the government has shut down debate before many members have even had a chance to speak on behalf of their constituents? The Liberals then come in and blame the opposition for all that.
They are the ones who have the power to be more forthcoming with information. They fight and they redact. They try to keep documents hidden. They have to be dragged kicking and screaming, at committees and here in the House, just to provide factual information and copies of correspondence. They do everything they can to block that, then they try to have some debate about when the House should adjourn, whether it should be 6:30 p.m. or midnight. They say that this is how they are protecting a democratic institution.
That is baloney. The real way we can protect our institutions is to be open and accountable. Independent officers of Parliament have denounced the Liberal Prime Minister for the assault that he has launched against information accountability and transparency.
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- Dec/14/22 4:57:50 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I do not want to sound too repetitive, but we are going to be thanking many of the same people. I, too, want to add my voice, on behalf of my colleagues, to wish everyone a merry Christmas around the parliamentary precinct.
It has been a tumultuous few years. The House has seen a lot and has had to grapple with a lot of challenges over the last few years. We are always served with such a high degree of professionalism and excellence by everyone around the precinct. This includes the procedural team at the table and the many people who work for them, like the Journals branch, Hansard, translation and security.
It takes a lot to allow the chamber to function and allow members of Parliament to represent their constituents and go about doing the people's work on their behalf.
I would like to add a special thanks to all the staff who work for members of Parliament. Our names and faces go on television, on campaign signs and on ballots, but we have a lot of people behind us helping us do our jobs. They are often the unsung heroes who are here late at night going through briefing materials and Auditor General reports, or translating things into one of the two official languages.
I know they will welcome the early adjournment this week and take a little time to recuperate. This has been a fairly lengthy stretch that is coming to a close now.
I would also like to thank my counterparts from the other parties. This is my second time serving as House leader for my party and the second time I have worked with the hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby.
It is my first time working with the hon. member for La Prairie.
Regardless of our party in the House, we all have the same motivation.
Regardless of which party members were elected as and regardless of our political philosophies, I have gotten to know over the years that members of Parliament are all motivated by the same thing. Even though we may disagree, and I may feel that some of my colleagues are misguided in their approaches, their motivation is to do what is right by their constituents and what is good for the country. This time of the season, it is a good opportunity for us to reflect on that and on the common bonds of humanity we all share.
Tragically, in the wake of a colleague's passing, and as we celebrate the birth of Christ and all the hope that brings to the world, it is a constant reminder that our time on this planet is short, so we should appreciate the best of each other.
As we enter into the Christmas break, we will all be attending events and visiting all corners of our constituencies. I hope it is a safe and happy holiday season. I know there will be a lot of travel back and forth. I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas break and a very happy new year, and we will see everyone back here in January.
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