Hon. Raymonde Saint-Germain: Your Honour, I know how incredibly humble you are and that I am prolonging your agony by rising to pay tribute to you.

In all seriousness though, you deserve all of the tributes that are being paid to you today because you have done such an excellent job as our Speaker, a role that is so very important to our institution.

I pay tribute to you today on behalf of the Independent Senators Group, only three members of which served with you before 2015. For the other 36 members of the group, you have been the only Speaker they have known in this chamber during a particularly complex and demanding time in the history of our institution.

Your Honour, your commitment to public service is an example to us all, and your leadership has been essential in guiding the Senate in its mission to represent all Canadians and to modernize the institution.

[English]

In your opening address to this chamber as Speaker, you started by stating:

Colleagues, our chamber is at a crossroads. We have an opportunity to work together to recreate how this chamber of the Parliament of Canada does its work for Canadians. Truly, we are entering uncharted waters in which we are invited by the government to reinvent ourselves in a less partisan way and fulfill our role, as envisioned under the Constitution, as an independent chamber of sober second thought.

Your Honour, you sailed us through these waters seamlessly, and your legacy as Speaker of the Canadian Senate will live on in our country’s history. You have worked tirelessly to modernize the institution and strengthen the confidence of Canadians in the Senate.

Your previous professional training has also served us well as members of this democratic institution. On the one hand, your legacy as a teacher has made you a great guide in helping new senators better understand the Senate as well as its rules and protocol. From time to time, you have even had to do the same for veteran senators. On the other hand, your legal training has made you a Speaker with a great sense of justice and fairness, and this sense has manifested itself in all your decisions and interventions within this chamber. You have handled this with great courage — the courage to take tough decisions, sometimes not to everyone’s liking.

Outside this chamber, you have acted as an eminent ambassador for our institution. Both within Canada and abroad, along with your wife, Karen, you have represented the Senate with great elegance and finesse, and I have had the pleasure of witnessing that on several occasions.

On a more personal note, I take this opportunity to wish Karen and you a happy retirement. For you and for your family, it will be a chance to finally enjoy each other’s presence more.

Your Honour, you leave behind an impressive legacy, and your contribution to Canadian democracy and public service will never be forgotten.

Thank you and congratulations on your outstanding public service!

Hon. Raymonde Saint-Germain: I rise today to pay tribute to an esteemed colleague and an inspiring woman with whom I’ve had the pleasure of serving since I arrived in the Senate. We were sworn in in this chamber just a few days apart, so this is a very special and personal moment for me.

[English]

I had the opportunity to get to know Senator Bovey in the three committees that we served on together: Transport and Communications, Foreign Affairs and Internal Economy, or CIBA. In all these instances, I was truly able to witness the excellence of Senator Bovey. At the CIBA Subcommittee on Human Resources particularly — and more recently — we tackled some delicate and important issues, and I can attest that no matter the subject or the situation at hand, she always acted with the respect and courtesy that characterize her so well. Patricia, I think I can speak for all the members of the subcommittee when I say your contribution and wisdom will be sorely missed.

I also have fond memories of working alongside you at the Foreign Affairs Committee, where you acted as the driving force during our extensive study of cultural diplomacy. We spoke to it yesterday, and I want to pay tribute to you on this as well. This important study is yet another example of the quality and vision of our studies here at the Senate and a feather in the committee’s cap. It positioned Canada’s culture on the international stage and gave guidelines in order to promote it and use it to our advantage.

As you said recently in reflecting on this Foreign Affairs Committee study:

Culture portrays who we are — our national values, roots and diversities. Conveying Canadian messages and realities abroad, culture tells others what Canada is, where we come from and our courage in where we’re going.

Senator Bovey, you can be proud of the role you played in conveying these messages. You truly are a great ambassador for Canada, our artists and, broadly, for our culture.

If I had to describe Senator Bovey in three words, I would use “artist” — the easy one — “manager” and “educator.” She is someone with a strong sense of good governance, vast knowledge and impeccable artistic taste, all of which has enriched the Senate of Canada. Notably, your numerous initiatives to promote Canadian artists in the Senate will be part of your long-lasting legacy.

As I have said before, Senator Bovey, with the commitment and enthusiasm you bring to the causes you believe in, you are truly inspiring. You will soon reach the age of mandatory senatorial retirement, but your character and dedication guarantees an active and busy time in your post-Senate life. I know you will continue to serve Canadians in a different manner.

In my name and in the name of all the members of the Independent Senators Group, I wish you, the Honourable Patricia Bovey, many happy and still active years to come.

Thank you.

Hon. Raymonde Saint-Germain: Honourable senators, I also want to pay tribute to a colleague and friend.

Dear Dennis, I would have preferred to give this speech in September 2024, because according to your date of birth, your departure is premature. However, in years of political life, you are part of an elite club of parliamentarians who have lived — although the better word is probably survived — on the Hill for such a long time.

Having won the seat for Louis-Hébert in 1977 at the age of 27, he was the youngest MP in the House of Commons. He earned a number of firsts since then, as my colleagues have mentioned. Of note, he is the only parliamentarian in this chamber to have worked under both Prime Ministers Trudeau.

This clearly demonstrates the breadth of his experience and the scope of his institutional memory, a memory that has helped us on countless occasions to better understand sometimes a context, sometimes the reasons for certain decisions, certain rules. We will sorely miss this memory.

[English]

If I had to describe Senator Dawson, it would be as a connector, someone with charisma, people skills and an innate sense of communication as well as human relations. If you ever met Dennis outside of Parliament, you would notice that he is very rarely alone — actually, he is never alone. He is always surrounded, always deep in a conversation. I even noticed there is a table at the Château Laurier — one right in the centre of the action — where nobody dares to sit unless he is there, fearing to take Senator Dawson’s place.

His international parliamentary network is remarkable. In his years as a parliamentarian, he deeply contributed to strengthening Canadian interparliamentary diplomacy. I personally have noticed how respected, esteemed and cherished he is by so many members of the Inter-Parliamentary Union. Adored by all his current and former employees, he is also known as one of the best people to work for on the Hill.

Apart from those qualities, Dennis is first and foremost a family man. We only have to take a peek at his iPad wallpaper, which always has the most recent picture of his first granddaughter, June Dawson, to know that his family is always on his mind.

He is also very devoted and loyal to his political family. Senator Dawson has never shied away from that fact. Never mind election results, leadership changes or institutional reforms, he is and always will be a proud Liberal.

[Translation]

Dennis, please know that my sadness in seeing you leave the Senate today is mitigated by the knowledge that I am not losing the friend I have known for years, the man with such a charming sense of humour — no, not Senator Dawson, but Dennis, Anne’s husband and father to Cindy, Kathryn-Anne and Julian, whom I wish to acknowledge today, and, of course, grandfather to June.

On behalf of all the members of the Independent Senators Group, I wish you much happiness in your retirement. I can only imagine that you will be very active and well taken care of elsewhere and otherwise.

See you soon, my friend.

Thank you. Meegwetch

[English]

Hon. Raymonde Saint-Germain: I rise today on behalf of the Independent Senators Group to pay tribute to a woman who exemplified the meaning of duty, Her late Majesty Elizabeth II, whose recent death at 96 saddens us all. First of all, I want to express our deepest condolences to the Royal Family, the people of Britain, as well as the many people who respected and admired the Queen.

Her passing marks the end of her 70-year reign. As head of the Commonwealth, she was the sovereign of the United Kingdom, Great Britain and Northern Ireland as well as the 14 Commonwealth countries, including Canada, and she reigned with incomparable finesse and constancy.

We cannot help but acknowledge her strength and admire her unwavering dedication to public service. Throughout all those years, she honoured her duty of restraint, even though her education and intelligence endowed her with strong, well‑documented opinions. I think that is a fundamental principle for the credibility of all Westminster-style parliamentary institutions, including ours.

This dedication is what struck me the most about her, in addition to her highly cultured mind. On more than one occasion, the Queen expressed her affinity for la Francophonie and her love and respect for the French language, which she spoke fluently and often.

[English]

In 1951, before her coronation, the then-princess came to Canada for the first of many times. Actually, she came to Canada 22 times for an official visit. She was accompanied by her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh. The couple landed in Montreal and immediately boarded a train that stopped at Anse au Foulon in Quebec City, a place at the heart of Canada’s discovery with a rich history, notably for the use of the coves supplying Great Britain with wood. According to media reports, the princess took the time to enjoy a maple and walnut ice cream, drizzled with maple syrup on the way. Not yet being a queen, she could afford herself more liberty.

A symbol of stability, she lived through the times and crises unperturbed. Since the death of her father, George VI, in 1952 — the year after she came to Quebec City — when she was only 25 years old, Queen Elizabeth II embodied a continuity, a foundation in time that moves too fast, which was somewhat reassuring in the face of the countless upheavals we lived through over the years.

In this very chamber, her presence has always been embodied by the mace that has witnessed Canadian parliamentary history since before Confederation, and continued to be a symbol of her presence in every single one of our sittings. The current mace survived three fires in Montreal, as well as the 1916 fire that destroyed Parliament’s original Centre Block building. It is one of the most important symbols that we inherited from the Westminster system, and it has stood her ground and endured through time and trials, which, to me, has always been a beautiful metaphor for the Queen.

In the same vein, I can’t help but remember a conversation I had with the Usher of the Black Rod, Mr. J. Greg Peters, who informed me about the gracious gift the Queen made to the Senate of Canada on the one hundred and fiftieth birthday of the Confederation where she offered a royal restoration of the Senate mace performed at Windsor Castle by the most renowned experts in the world.

Queen Elizabeth’s accession to the throne also coincided with the most welcome end of the colonial period of the British Empire, and she succeeded in navigating this transition from the 19th century colonialism to democracy and the modern state of the world as we know it today.

More importantly, she did so with grace and goodwill.

The Queen will be fondly remembered as an extraordinary public figure and an outstanding woman with a wealth of experience, intelligence and culture, who always maintained her role with resilience and the inner strength to carry out her duties while observing the most important one: her duty of reserve.

You can tell by the outpouring of tributes and grief at her passing that as a human being, she was as loved as she was respected throughout the Commonwealth countries and beyond.

[Translation]

The dignity demonstrated by the Queen throughout her reign is undoubtedly a source of inspiration for all parliamentarians, especially us, the members of the Senate, the chamber of sober second thought. We will remember her as a woman who symbolized exemplary selflessness, constancy, capability and soft power. May we, in her memory, remember that we are here to serve an ideal that is greater than ourselves. Thank you.

[English]