Elizabeth May
Saanich—Gulf Islands, British Columbia · Green Party · Canada
“It is easy to roll out solar panels, except that our provincial utilities get in the way. In any case, the cheapest source of electricity, reducing the cost for everyone, would come from focusing on renewable electricity. I do think there is some promise, although it needs a lot of work.”
“We are the only party in the House that does not receive a penny of support from the parliamentary budget, being both unrecognized and unfavoured. I am glad my colleagues from the NDP received funding to make up for what they lost when they ceased to be a recognized party. I have less money, but I am here, and I am not alone.”
“When it became clear that children were dying of Reye syndrome in New Brunswick because of forest aerial spraying by the forest industry. He stated, “I don't like to see people dying. This is one of the things I really wouldn't like to see.”
“That is not the only thing I want to concentrate on, although I will take most of the time, and I am grateful for the chance to speak to this bill now, finally, in this place. Regarding the removal of the excise tax, I have asked before about this in question period.”
“There is not even a link in the language used within the spring economic statement, the budget itself or Bill C-30, but it clearly, by inference, rests on this assumption: More pesticides are going to reduce food prices and help the economy. That is a leap. Let us say that is wrong, based on the evidence, in two ways.”
“Mr. Speaker, the hon. parliamentary secretary is a friend, so when I say a friend, it is not just rhetoric, but I am disappointed. When Bill C-30 was first tabled, I asked the hon.”
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“Madam Speaker, earlier this week, in Ottawa, I was honoured to meet with brave indigenous women from Guatemala, representing the Xinca people, who are fighting a Canadian silver mine in Escobal that is violating their rights. I thought, right away, that I would go to the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise, to see if they could investigate. They do not have good investigative tools. They do not have teeth in that office. Right now, however, the office is empty. Can the hon. Minister of International Trade inform us when the new ombudsperson will be in place?”
“Madam Speaker, I heard my friend's comment earlier on Bill C-2 , and I want to pursue it a bit. I know we are talking about Bill C-8 . I would like the member's thoughts on this as a lawyer. Why would we not consider something else instead of thinking we can open people's mail? It has the addressee's name right on it. If we think a package or a letter is suspicious, does the hon. member think there is a better way to pursue what is in the envelope by asking the addressee before we open it without their permission?”
“Madam Speaker, certainly Bill C-8 has a number of improvements based on the debates we had in this place before Bill C-26 died on the Order Paper and, as my hon. friend from Sarnia—Lambton—Bkejwanong just mentioned, on work done in the Senate as well. However, these persist. As the minister knows, under part 2, proposed section 35, there remain very serious privacy concerns that this would open a back door to surveillance on Canadians, as would Bill C-2 , which is not being debated today. There is a pattern here of reducing the threshold for Canadians' private information to be not just obtained by our government but also shared with other governments and actors. Is the minister open to amendments to repair these flaws?”
“Madam Speaker, to my hon. colleague, I know his intentions are good, but I am with the hon. member for Brantford—Brant South—Six Nations . I do not think the Liberals have lowered in this bill the definition of hatred; they have just made it impenetrable. I do not understand why, when we already have so many strong pieces of legislation within the Criminal Code and against hate crimes elsewhere, they decided to change the definition of hatred to mean “the emotion that involves detestation or vilification and that is stronger than disdain or dislike.” It does not make sense to add new legislation where it is not needed and make it more confusing.”
“Mr. Speaker, I rise for the first time today to take part in this important debate. [ English ] I agree that the notwithstanding clause should be used only sparingly. I think it should go to the Supreme Court, but I also have deep respect for my colleagues in the Bloc Québécois. I have deep respect, and I felt that, at one point in the member's speech, he dismissed the concerns of Bloc Québécois members, because of their wanting to break up the country. I want to say very clearly to my own constituents and to other members in this place that what I see in the Bloc Québécois members of Parliament is a deep commitment to serve Quebec, as each of us should serve our own communities. I do not see them as destructive. I see them as constructive allies in seeking progressive values.”
“Madam Speaker, I have another opportunity to welcome a new member to this place, the member for Vancouver Quadra. In the language of Musqueam people, I think it is Hul'q'umi'num', hych'ka siam . Unfortunately, there was not an answer there for when we would see the new programs that would replace eliminating the consumer carbon price. There is not an answer there for what we are going to do if there is a pause on electric vehicles. With my 30 seconds left, I will only ask this question of the hon. member: How do we explain to our grandchildren that we let them down so badly when we failed to take the steps that we could have taken when we still had time to ensure a viable biosphere and a livable human civilization for them? The scientists are clear. Why do the politicians fail the children?”
“The numbers make people's eyes glaze over. What do they mean? They mean that when people speak of drought in the Prairies in a particularly bad year, it is a trend that may well be unstoppable, not of drought as individual episodes but of aridification as a process that will dry out areas that are breadbaskets and make it very difficult for prairie farmers to survive. When we look at what is happening across the country, we are seeing wildfire after wildfire, extreme flood events and extreme heat dome events, and around the world, we are seeing people dying from the effects of a climate crisis. We know and understand what must be done, and yet we fail to do it. Is it cognitive dissonance? Is it opportunism and political strategies that come ahead of saving the lives of our own children? I ask the minister this: When will we see a plan?”
“Those were the legally binding targets that we once filed, called nationally determined contributions, with the United Nations under the terms of the Paris Agreement, in which I have to say Canada took a lead role in negotiating, just as we did in 1992 with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. We were the first industrialized country to both sign and ratify that treaty. It is legally binding, and through it, our Paris Agreement targets are legally binding. On our commitment to reduce our emissions by 40% to 45% below 2005 levels by 2030, we knew we were falling short when I asked the question in May. Now we know from the Canadian Climate Institute report of a few days ago that this is how far behind we are: We can expect at this point that we are on track to reduce our emissions by 20% to 25% below 2005 levels.”
“We knew by May 30 we were not close to meeting our target that is due in five years, so I asked when the government would replace the things that are being cut that deal with emissions reductions so that we have a chance to ensure a livable world for our children. The minister did not answer the question as to when we would see a plan, but she did confirm that the Liberals would “make sure that we reduce our emissions, fight climate change and keep Canadians safe.” Here we are some months later, and we now have the very clear and devastating report from the Canadian Climate Institute that takes us forward and says what we can now expect in terms of emissions reductions from Canada.”
“Madam Speaker, I am pursuing a question that I asked the Minister of Environment in question period on May 30, when we were in the midst of unprecedented wildfires throughout the Prairies and the state of emergency as it existed in several prairie provinces. I pointed out that we were, at last count, only 7% below 2005 levels, with a due date for our emissions reductions to 40% to 45% by 2030. The response from the hon. Minister of Environment was to not answer the question that I had asked, which was, “When will the government present a plan?” Certainly by that time, we knew that the new government, under the new Prime Minister , was cancelling plans put in place by the previous government, so my question was very pressing.”
“Madam Speaker, I do not think I said a single thing that represented misinformation, but the position of the Green Party is that we should not import any foreign oil. We should use only Canadian oil and Canadian fossil fuels as we conduct a phase-out and a phase-down. That only makes sense. By the way, for dictator oil, people point to Saudi Arabia. The only refinery in Canada that uses Saudi oil is, again, the Irving refinery I mentioned earlier.”
“Madam Speaker, I am not certain of the question, but I will say this: We know we are facing something that is not easy. It is time to stop sugarcoating it. Whenever I hear someone say the economy and the environment go together, and over the years I have heard many Liberals say this, I always picture Thelma and Louise, with their hands clasped, going over the edge of the cliff. The decisions we need to make now are not easy, and the longer we procrastinate, the harder those decisions get. As a result, we need to figure out how to decarbonize quickly, while building those sections of our economy that stand to benefit, including new technologies. The ability to have a 100% renewable energy electricity grid, east-west and north-south, will drive a lot of economic growth in this country.”
“Madam Speaker, the consequences would be dire. Scientists from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, issued a clear and unanimous warning. Human civilization is at risk of extinction if all of humanity and all of the planet's economies continue to ignore the threat. We must act. We are running out of time, but it is not too late.”
“Madam Speaker, I am very aware of my carbon footprint. That is why I buy carbon offsets, and I have not flown on a vacation or travelled on an airplane for any personal reason for the last 15 years. It is grievous to me, but I find that I am able to be more effective as an MP here and not by staying at home on Zoom, but I thank the member for raising the point.”
“Therefore, at its end-point destination, when that project was a live one and had a private sector proponent, it was to go on tankers and leave the port of Saint John, New Brunswick, to go somewhere else. What is happening now that we have the port at what was the Kinder Morgan pipeline? We now have the port of Burnaby shipping out dilbit, and some of it is going to China. As I said, it is a solid, and an astonishing reality is that one of the reasons we do not get more money for it now that it reaches tidewater is it is still a product of inherently low value and is very expensive to produce. To get all the way over to China, about a third of what— (1820)”
“If anyone has looked at the price lately, they will find, having gotten bitumen to tidewater, we are not getting paid more for it. That is because bitumen is not even synthetic crude. It cannot go right into a refinery. Therefore, wherever the shipped dilbit goes, when it gets to its destination, the diluent has to be removed, the “dil” part, which means fossil fuel condensates like naphthalene or even benzene. Then we have the solid lump of tar again. Then we have to put that through an upgrader. Once we have put it through an upgrader, we can refine it. With respect to the east-west pipeline, the Irving refinery in Saint John, New Brunswick, made it very clear that it had no intention of ever building an upgrader.”
“Nobody even realized when putting it on board a train that Bakken shale, if it blew up, would create a fireball and kill many people. Bitumen put on a train is 100% safe. Solid bitumen, when loaded into a train car, could fall off a high cliff and crash onto the cliff below and would lie there like a lump. We could not set it on fire with a blowtorch because it is a solid. It is a tar. Now that we have built the pipeline, which the Canadian public paid $34 billion and counting for, there is this great argument, speaking of misconceptions, that if we could only get our bitumen to tidewater, we could get rid of the price differential because it is so unfair. It is because the bitumen is landlocked, so the story goes, that we cannot get a fair price for our bitumen compared to West Texas Intermediate.”
“It is a consortium of a number of companies from around the world: Petronas of Malaysia, PetroChina of the People's Republic of China, one company from Japan, one company from Korea, and a very progressive alliance with the Haisla Nation. It is not Canadian. Going back to other misconceptions, there has always been great talk of the east-west pipeline, if only it had gone ahead. The difficulty there is that an east-west pipeline for dilbit, dilbit being diluted bitumen, because bitumen is a solid, would only succeed if we diluted the bitumen. The only reason we are doing that is to get it to flow through a pipeline. Another misconception is about, as I mentioned, the explosion of Lac-Mégantic. That was when Bakken shale blew up. It is appalling how negligent the shippers were.”
“Unconventional natural gas, as in fracked gas, is not a transition fuel when examined by experts like David Hughes and others in looking at the carbon footprint for the whole cycle of producing fracked natural gas. It has the same carbon footprint as coal through its whole life cycle because of the fugitive emissions, the methane that is released by the fracking. The liquefied natural gas project that the Prime Minister has announced is on the government's short list for a project of national significance, as other members have pointed out, has already gone through all stages of approval, so we can hardly say it is being fast-tracked. However, we cannot say it is Canadian either.”
“We also have water contamination from the composition of the water that is injected deep into breaking up the fractured gas that occurs in areas of British Columbia, as well as other areas where fracking produces natural gas. It does not have the same impact on climate as the natural gas that was found in pooled natural gas. Fracked natural gas, because it is fracturing different layers geologically, has a tremendous volume of what are called fugitive methane emissions. Methane is a far more powerful greenhouse gas unit for unit than carbon dioxide. While some people here, well-meaning I know, have referred to fracked natural gas as a transition fuel, it is conventional natural gas that could be called a transition fuel.”
“It is harder to get to oil, so there is that return on investment on oil that has to do with the energy invested to get the oil, and we are down to the place of diminishing returns. By the time we get to bitumen, we have to put a tremendous amount of effort into getting the bitumen out of the ground, and that has been done in the oil sands. Another place where we see unconventional oil is what blew up in Lac-Mégantic, getting crude oil out of Bakken shale. Again, once we have to get fossil fuels out of layers of geological formation, it takes more energy to get it, costs more and involves more pollution. (1815) Going back to natural gas, in British Columbia, our natural gas comes from fracking. In the areas where there is fracking, we have earthquakes caused by fracking.”
“As a matter of fact, the reason the Province of Ontario took the steps years ago to ban burning coal for electricity was for reasons of human health, to reduce hospital visits for people who suffered from asthma and hospital spikes that occurred during smog days. Another area to clear up a misconception, and this one is more complicated, is what the difference is between exporting natural gas when found in pockets, pools of actual natural gas, versus fracking for unconventional natural gas. When we go unconventional, there are more emissions. Let us imagine The Beverly Hillbillies for a moment, the shooting up of oil out of the ground and how happy Jed Clampett was. We do not have oil like that anymore.”
“Again, Bill C-33 , as it stood, ready to be passed at third reading, would have ended the practice of bringing in U.S. coal for purposes of burning for electricity. As a number of speakers have mentioned, it would be best not to burn any thermal coal for electricity anywhere on the planet. It still, until recently, was the cheapest way. It certainly is the cheapest of the fossil fuels. It used to be the cheapest way to produce electricity, but that is no longer the case. Solar panels produce energy and electricity far more cheaply than coal and without the side effects of global warming and immediate health effects.”
“just to go to the port of Vancouver for export. This is because, all down the western coast of the United States, shipping thermal coal to Asia has been banned for climate reasons. However, Canada is very accommodating. It takes the thermal coal from across the United States, takes it to the port of Vancouver and ships it to China. We did have a bill before this place, Bill C-33 , which was at the point of third reading when it died on the Order Paper January 6, and it would have lived up to the Liberal election promise of 2021 to ban the export of thermal coal from the port of Vancouver. I hope to see this bill reintroduced at some point. It had a lot of other measures that were important for coastal communities in British Columbia, as well as for rail safety.”
“It is an interesting story about thermal coal exports, although they are relatively minor. I think there are, off the top of my head, $12 billion in exports in metallurgical coal to $2 billion in exports of thermal coal. The thermal coal exported from B.C. is kind of an interesting story. It comes from the United States. It is shipped up through and over the roadways through I think South Surrey—White Rock and over to the port of Vancouver. There is tremendous concern locally because the coal dust contaminates the air, so it is an air pollution problem and a health issue. For those and other reasons, I suppose, the Liberal Party platform in 2021 promised to end the exports of thermal coal through the port of Vancouver. Members might have wondered, as I explained the situation, why it is that thermal coal comes up by road from the U.S.”
“Madam Speaker, I will begin by welcoming my hon. friend from the neighbouring riding of Victoria to this place as a new member of Parliament. I am going to start, actually, by answering a question that was directed to the hon. member for Victoria just moments ago, and that is to clear up some misconceptions. As a matter of fact, having been in the House all day through the debates, I would like to dedicate the time I have to cleaning up misconceptions. The first one concerns British Columbia's exports of coal, and 95% of the coal produced in British Columbia, which is 95% of the exports, is metallurgical coal. It is designed for purposes that do not include direct burning, do not produce electricity, and have an entirely different kind of greenhouse gas footprint from thermal coal.”
“Mr. Speaker, I will add my words of welcome to the hon. member for Carleton. One area that is very difficult is when people who generally should agree, like people who want climate action, end up repeating things that are not the case. In the case of liquefied natural gas coming from British Columbia, the liquefied natural gas comes from fracking. Fracking threatens our water supplies. Fracking causes earthquakes and releases vast quantities of methane. According to energy experts, this means the carbon footprint of fracked gas is the same as that of coal. I wonder if the hon. member for Carleton has any comments or questions in relation to that reality.”
“Mr. Speaker, in this place, the notion is that there are projects in the national interest. To describe LNG Canada as a Canadian project is to have failed to look at the investors. They are almost entirely Asian: PetroChina, a Korean company and a Japanese company. There is a significant alliance with the Haisla Nation. This project has been heavily subsidized by the Government of British Columbia. It is a climate-killing project as LNG that is fracked has the same carbon footprint as coal. In any case, to the hon. member, how can this project be described as Canadian when the investors are in Asia?”
“Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise today to present this petition on the issue of the transition to clean, green, renewable energy. [ English ] Petitioners are calling on the House, in looking at the Paris Agreement and the need to transition our economy, to not forget the skills and the needs of oil and gas workers, to ensure there is a just transition for workers in the fossil fuel sector, and to ensure, working alongside workers in these sectors, Canada puts forward a strong plan based on the task force on just transition for Canadian coal power workers and communities.”
“Mr. Speaker, it is really hard to know where to begin, with the number of narratives and fantasies that were included in the member's speech. It does seem to me, as a parenthetical comment, and I will put a question to my friend, that there is a desperate attempt here from the Liberal Party to try to steal votes from the Conservatives and abandon all the people who thought Liberals were once part of what we thought of as a progressive group of parties in this place. I will ask the member this: Is he not aware of, or did he forget, when he accuses falsely the Leader of the Official Opposition of failing to do anything when he was in Harper's cabinet, Bill C-38 , which repealed the Environmental Assessment Act, and that the Kinder Morgan pipeline was given a red carpet with accelerated speed and a long—”
“The petitioners also point out how many billions and tens of billions of dollars have been directed to Canadian Nuclear Laboratories since SNC-Lavalin took over. The petitioners call on the government to ask and instruct the Auditor General to conduct an independent, objective and systematic assessment of how well AECL is managing its activities and responsibilities and to prohibit the agencies or other parts of this consortium from entering into contracts with the Canadian Nuclear Laboratories Partners of Canada or any other private body until an audit is complete and results are publicly available and discussed in Parliament. I cannot call them “Canadian” because they are from the U.S.”
“Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise to present e-petition 6636, which has been signed by about 2,500 Canadians. I will summarize it, but the presentation deals with a slightly complicated transaction, in which Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, a former Atomic Energy of Canada Limited subsidiary that is currently managed and controlled by what used to be called SNC-Lavalin, now AtkinsRéalis, has entered into a relationship with a consortium of U.S. firms. The petitioners explain that these are called the Nuclear Laboratories Partners of Canada, but they are U.S. firms scheduled to receive the largest public contract in the history of Canada, at $24 billion over 20 years, proposing to manage the facilities of Canadian Nuclear Laboratories and ancillary assets.”
“Mr. Speaker, it is in the context of the petition from the hon. member for Algonquin—Renfrew—Pembroke . I would love some guidance from you. I do not think our parliamentary petition process allows a petition itself to accuse UN officials of all being corrupt. I think when presenting a petition, as I understand the rules, we are merely to summarize. I found that distressing, but perhaps it was within the rules, so I raise it to you for guidance.”
“Mr. Speaker, within my community of Saanich—Gulf Islands, concerns run deep for the fate of wild Pacific salmon. The petitioners are calling for the Government of Canada to remove the conflict of interest within the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Act, which makes it a requirement for the department to both promote aquaculture and regulate aquaculture. The petitioners are also calling for the government to fully implement the recommendations of the long-standing report commissioned under the previous government of Stephen Harper, the excellent report of the Hon. Bruce Cohen that was released in 2012. The petitioners note that we have yet to see the 75 recommendations implemented.”
“It is appropriate that today we take the time to honour her memory, thank her for her service, and thank her family and Skinners Pond for sharing her with Canada.”
“I told Gail that this friend had thought all through her childhood that it was actually, “Surely, good Mrs. Murphy shall follow me all the days of my life”. Being that the child was Irish, it seemed to fit, and Gail loved that. There was something about Gail that one could imagine her as good Mrs. Murphy following us all the days of our lives. She was kind-hearted, hard-working and dedicated, and someone who was an inspiration to know. She showed that life after politics as a grandmother can be a whole lot better than life in politics. The leader of the official opposition mentioned that he was at the funeral. How many people have 29 honorary pallbearers, including a former prime minister and former colleagues? She will be missed.”
“I think of what it must have been like for her that, in 2021, she lost her dear husband Russell. The two of them had 45 years of marriage. I still think she died very young at 66. They had 45 years of marriage and five children. That is a rich life before we count the number of successes she experienced in politics, the number of times she was elected, and the numbers of times and the different ways in which she served. One of my favourite memories, and I cannot remember why it was, but of course this is Canada, so we were sitting with each other on an airplane. She was Irish and both of us were Christian. I said that reminded me that I had known a friend, an Irish small child, when I was a small child. This friend had misunderstood, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life”.”
“As far as I can tell, in the years that I have known Prince Edward Islanders of different parties in politics, there had never been a time when a Prince Edward Island MP got elected to Parliament, joined a federal cabinet and then survived the next election. There tended to be a bit of a tradition of defeating anybody who ended up in cabinet. I am looking over at some of my friends here, and I cannot say their names out loud, to see if I got that wrong, but I think she was the very first. We know she was the first federal minister woman to enter any cabinet from Prince Edward Island in this country. She served at the provincial level, and she served in the cabinet of Stephen Harper. She survived to run again and get re-elected. She was, as we know, someone of great energy, good humour and a very big heart to welcome all.”
“Mr. Speaker, I thank all the previous speakers. I knew Gail Shea. Of the people we have paid tribute to today, though I knew them all, it was only with Gail Shea that I served at the same time in an overlapping period. She was always a great person to visit with, to have fun with and to chat with. She was certainly formidable. It has already been noted that she was a trailblazer. I want to mention, of course, one aspect of her political success. Coming from the Maritimes myself, I know this was the case, or I am pretty sure it was, but Prince Edward Islanders can correct me if I have this wrong.”
“He did so with a generosity of spirit toward those of us in opposition that has rarely been matched. Yes, there is no doubt that there could be sparring, as I would say to my friend from Calgary Nose Hill . Those were good moments. However, that was with a good heart and nothing that could be considered mean-spirited. He was a kind and generous man of enormous intellect. He had a great, deep and abiding love for this country, which he lived out every day. I would say to his wife, Nancy; his children; and his six grandchildren that he has gone too soon. From the bottom of my heart, I ask the Lord to receive him into his kingdom. He was a wonderful man. We will miss him. Thank you for sharing him with us.”
“I would plead with him that he not deport the person and ask if he could see his way clear to talking to his officials, because there were things there that just did not add up in the way the department had decided to handle the matter. He was patient and kind. He was willing to listen. He would try to apply his immense brain to the very specific local concerns I brought to him. (1610) I want Canadians to know that if they go to a Wikipedia page, everything that was ever controversial pops up. Let us forget all of that. Canada and every Canadian owe people in public life a debt of gratitude, and there are not many who serve as long as John McCallum. John McCallum served in the cabinets of the following former prime ministers: the Right Hon. Jean Chrétien, the Right Hon. Paul Martin and the Right Hon. Justin Trudeau.”
“He would stop and we would talk about anything, because I was sitting in a good spot for stopping and having a conversation. He also tried to help to resolve the situation we were in at that point, trying to get a toxic waste site cleaned up. In the end, and that is a longer story, we did. What I want to share is with respect to his incredible thoughtfulness and kindness when at last I was here as a member of Parliament. The friendship we forged through those unusual circumstances on his smoke breaks lasted. Just as our colleague from Vancouver East said, I would go to him as the then minister of immigration, and he would unfailingly make time to listen to specific cases.”
“He was a man of enormous kindness. There were some people who would rush by me as I sat in front of Centre Block. By the way, it was not illegal. I got a permit from the Parliament Hill people to be able to sit right in front of the members' doors to stay on this hunger strike. John, like our colleague whom I should mention, Ralph Goodale, was really worried about my health. Not that I need to mention him, but I can say his name now because he is not here. So were quite a few members of Parliament and even members of cabinet. While I was worried about John and his smoking, he was worried about me being on a hunger strike, so he kept checking on me. It meant a great deal that he would stop, talk and check on me through this period, and we became really good friends. I appreciated his sense of humour.”
“I will not digress into the circumstances of how I got to know him too deeply, but I was on a hunger strike in front of Parliament Hill in 2003 to try to get a toxic waste site cleaned up in Cape Breton. That is when I really got to know John McCallum. When I think back on it, I remember how often I tried to get him to stop smoking. Of course, he passed away from lung cancer. The reason I got to know him so well is that I was sitting in front of Parliament Hill for 17 days on a hunger strike, so the members of Parliament I got to know best were the ones who went out for smoke breaks the most often. When he left to become the ambassador to China, I told him it was good because my chances of getting him to stop smoking had gone downhill and that he could smoke anywhere in China as I did not think there were any rules against smoking.”
“Mr. Speaker, I too am honoured to rise this afternoon to pay tribute to our colleague and dear friend, John McCallum. He was an extraordinary man, a genius. He was a lawyer, I believe, and a professor. He was an academic and a scholar. [ English ] He was not just someone who had a few degrees here and there; he was the dean of arts at a university. He was a chief economist at the Royal Bank. He did all of this and had a political career. His articles remain noted for their scholarly importance in the fields in which he practised in economics. We knew each other through a strange circumstance, I suppose. I got to know him quite well. We became friends. I can share, as the member for Vancouver East and the member for Calgary Nose Hill have said, how kind he was to people in other parties, sharing ideas and his humour.”
“His family, Lynda, Sarah, Michael and his grandchildren, has our deepest sympathy and gratitude for sharing a remarkable human being, a truly decent human being of remarkable talent and skill, who gave his life, his dedication and service to inspiring Canadians, not just when he served in this place but also with the legacy he left for us to achieve and deliver on the promises he started so brilliantly to deliver.”
“It set the stage, and we still have work to do, because every child in Canada deserves the best start in life and deserves high quality early education and child care, and every parent needs to know that when they drop their child off at child care, it is affordable and they are not choosing between their rent and child care. Let me close with Ken Dryden's own words. When he achieved this for Canadians, the selfless, hard work in a very partisan and difficult place, Ken Dryden described himself as “the luckiest guy in government” because he was given a tough job to achieve something meaningful. I would ask all of us to reflect on that. When will we feel we have accomplished something that makes us feel we are the luckiest person in Parliament because we were given an impossible task and we accomplished it?”
“I remember working with Martha Friendly, who founded the University of Toronto's Childcare Resource and Research Unit, and her tireless work with then minister Dryden. It is Martha I want to quote now. I never heard Ken Dryden say these words, but Martha said she will never forget Ken Dryden saying, as he started on this mission, “We need to get the system so in place that we’re painted into a corner and it can’t ever be removed.” Unfortunately that did not occur. He created a universal child care program, and it obviously set a benchmark.”
“I will not take all my time, because so many good words have been said of the way in which he inspired youth, the way in which he championed important causes, and the remarkable achievement of being a successful NHL player while also, as my friend from Winnipeg Centre said so eloquently, making sure his education was completed. Although many people will debate whether choosing the practice of law was a good choice, I endorse it myself. Because Ken Dryden had such a keen mind and a heart for public service, he did so much for this country and for women. Let me share what I remember. I remember Ken Dryden's working ceaselessly to get signed agreements with each of the 10 provinces in this country to guarantee that we would have affordable early education and child care for every Canadian child.”
“Mr. Speaker, it is a great honour to have a chance to add my words to those of my colleagues on the passing of a remarkable Canadian whom I was very, very lucky to know. Obviously I did not get to know him because I play hockey. I did not get to know him in courtrooms, although I was a practising lawyer. I got to know him before I was involved in partisan politics, while I was working with other women leaders and other people in civil society working for child care when Ken Dryden was minister of social development.”