SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 291 - Mar/19/24

Mrs. Anna Roberts (King—Vaughan, CPC)

Mar/19/24 4:31:38 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am a little confused. My colleague canvassed and campaigned for the leader of the provincial Liberal Party. She announced today that, if the Liberals get elected, which I highly doubt, she will cut the carbon tax. Which leader does he support?

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Context: House Hansard - 291 - Mar/19/24

Mr. Sukh Dhaliwal (Surrey—Newton, Lib.)

Mar/19/24 7:43:44 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to the Right Hon. Brian Mulroney, a remarkable individual who served in the chamber for over a decade but who served this country his entire life. In January 1984, I immigrated to Canada. It was later that year that I witnessed my first Canadian federal election, in which the Right Hon. Brian Mulroney was first elected as the 18th Prime Minister of Canada. It was very coincidental that on September 17, 1984, I celebrated my birthday in Canada for the first time. That is the day Brian Mulroney took the office of Prime Minister. It was very inspiring to see a fellow born in a middle-class working family become the Prime Minister of Canada. That can happen only here in Canada. I was later recruited by the Right Hon. Paul Martin, in 1990, to support him in his leadership race. From 1984 to 1993, Prime Minister Mulroney won two majority governments and steered Canada through several important policy decisions, including the end of the Cold War, the introduction of the GST and the free trade agreement with the United States. Prime Minister Mulroney was instrumental in establishing the North American Free Trade Agreement, which played a pivotal role in the economic strength of our entire nation. He will be remembered for his engaging personality, which was key to strengthening the important relationship between Canada and the United States at a time when there was a rising tide of American protectionism. Long after he had formally retired from public life, Mr. Mulroney continued to apply his energy and efforts to protecting Canada’s economic and geopolitical interests. In 2017, I had the opportunity to sit as a member on the Standing Committee on International Trade, and we carefully studied the ongoing negotiations of a revised NAFTA agreement. When then president Donald Trump was preparing to rip up NAFTA and impose import restrictions that would have hampered Canadian manufacturing, it was Mr. Mulroney who stepped up to help. He had thorough knowledge of the U.S. political scene and understood the movement that was transforming American politics. Mr. Mulroney knew many of the key players personally and applied both his knowledge and his contacts in ways that helped Canada. He was a former Progressive Conservative prime minister offering aid to a Liberal government. Mr. Mulroney simply did not care about the domestic political considerations, as he was all-in for our country. Today, I had the privilege and opportunity to pay tribute to Mr. Mulroney at the official lying-in-state here in Ottawa. I am saddened by the loss of a man who cared deeply about Canadians. Mr. Mulroney’s principles helped shape this nation and the world for the better. On behalf of my constituents in Surrey—Newton, I would like to convey my sincere, heartfelt condolences to Mr. Mulroney’s family, including his wife, Mila, and children, Caroline, Ben, Mark and Nicolas. I also want to wish Mila good health and strength, and the very best to his children so they can continue to follow the trail he blazed for all of us to keep us proud. May Prime Minister Mulroney rest in peace, and God bless his soul.

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Context: House Hansard - 291 - Mar/19/24

Mr. Chris Warkentin (Grande Prairie—Mackenzie, CPC)

Mar/19/24 8:24:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my riding name is Grande Prairie—Mackenzie now, but when I was first elected it was the riding of Peace River. When I was running for the nomination in that riding, a larger riding than the one I currently represent, I called my predecessor's predecessor. It was a guy by the name of Albert Cooper. It was a bit of a cold call because I did not know Albert. I knew my parents had met him during his time serving as a member of Parliament. I knew his reputation. He was a guy engaged in business. He owned an airline at the time. I made a cold call to him and said, “Albert, would you mind if I dropped by and give you my pitch? I would like to become the member of Parliament for a riding.” I was a young guy. Interestingly, I was a very similar age to the age Albert was when he was first elected. Albert took the time to meet with me. We got to visiting and Albert talked about his time as a member of Parliament. Having been elected first in 1984 and then in 1988, Albert had remarkable stories. He had stories of his leader, the guy who Albert, whom I just spoke to on the phone, credits as the strongest leader and the most incredible leader he has had the privilege to serve under and work with. Albert told me in those stories that Brian Mulroney was a remarkable guy who had an incredible ability to connect with caucus in ways that no other leader or, it seemed, no other human had ever figured out how to do. When Albert's son was born, flowers were delivered to the Peace River hospital. When someone had a sick aunt or a grandma who had health difficulties, Brian just seemed to know. He would pick up the phone, call and have that human connection. Those were interesting stories, and over the years that followed, every time I would visit with Albert, he would have good instruction for me as a member of Parliament, as a young guy getting into the business, both personal and professional. Every single time we met, there were stories of Brian Mulroney. Those loomed large in my head. As a young Albertan member of Parliament, I tried to reconcile them with some of my earliest remembrances of watching the news with politicians debating and hearing the stories of the great Brian Mulroney, who, of course, was not immune to controversy during my young life. As a matter of fact, Albert mentioned to me today that it was often Brian's humour that would get him into trouble because he was so often able to bring up a joke but it did not always land the way he intended. That is the danger with humour, and I wish that was not the case for those of us who are elected, because if we had more of that, I think we would all be a bit more human and could all survive in this business a lot better. Canadians would be better served by that. These stories continue to bang around in my head, and it would have been about five years into my service as a member of Parliament that I was up in the dining room of the Centre Block dining hall, the parliamentary dining room. I was sitting there with the guy who went on to be Alberta's finance minister, Travis Toews, who was at that point the president of the Cattlemen's Association. We were having a great lunch, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw that Jim Flaherty, the finance minister at the time and a good friend of mine, was getting up from a table and I realized that he had been dining with Brian Mulroney. Having never met Brian Mulroney and seeing that they were going to pass right by my table, I decided to stand up and honour the former prime minister. I stood up and barely got the words “Hello, Mr. Prime Minister” out of my mouth when he said, “Christopher Warkentin”. I was somewhat startled and he said, “I have been watching you in your work as the chair of the aboriginal affairs committee, and I want to tell you how remarkable I think you are.” He heaped on all kinds of compliments. He went on to talk about the importance of being a member of Parliament, but also of being a Conservative member of Parliament, and how important it was, at that time, to have strong men and women who could stand up and be in different roles within Parliament. He paid tribute to what I thought was a smaller role in our Parliament at that time. He then went on to learn about my family and to talk about what an important thing family was and how important it was for him. He finally decided that it was time to move on. I would have talked to him all day. I did not want to take up the rest of his afternoon. I would have loved to sit there, but I wanted to respect his time. He was willing to continue to talk to me until he was done, and he finished his message by telling me how important family was. He then thanked me for serving and thanked my family for letting me serve. Today, as we reflect on the great Brian Mulroney, there are so many stories like that. As a matter of fact, when Brian finally moved on, Travis Toews looked across the table and said that he did not know I was such good friends with Brian Mulroney, to which I said this was the first time I had ever met him. He was struck by the fact that Brian not only knew something of what my career had been, but spent so much time building up the importance of that role. He encouraged me to continue in that role and spent so much time ensuring that I recognized the importance of family. As we now move past and reflect on Brian's time, we want to thank him for his service. We want to thank his family for their service and their willingness to share their dad with us as a country. To Mila, Mark, Caroline, Nicolas and Ben, we say thanks for sharing their dad in building our country. We know that Brian encouraged us to know the importance of our family because he knew the importance of his family. On behalf of all Canadians, we want to thank them for sharing their dad. We want to thank Brian for his service. We want to let his family know that our thoughts and prayers are with them as they go through this difficult time of saying goodbye. May he rest in peace.

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Context: House Hansard - 291 - Mar/19/24

Hon. Ed Fast (Abbotsford, CPC)

Mar/19/24 8:54:28 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I too want to join with my colleagues in recounting my fond memories of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. I am going to focus my speech on his colossal trade achievements on behalf of Canadians. One has to understand that, as is true for so many other Canadians, my life has been profoundly impacted by the life of Brian Mulroney. I grew up in Vancouver and, as a young child, at nine years of age, I already knew that perhaps, one day, I would make a life in politics. Little did I know that I would end up in this place. However, my member of Parliament, back in those years, in south Vancouver, was a fellow by the name of John Fraser. He was elected in 1972, became fisheries minister under Brian Mulroney and then, yes, became the Speaker of the House of Commons. He basically sat in the chair the current Speaker is sitting in today. I used to admire John Fraser from a distance. He was now a cabinet minister in the Mulroney government, and I often thought that it would be wonderful to represent the constituents of my community in Ottawa someday and help shape the future of my dear country. I went through university. I graduated with a law degree, and my wife and I moved out to the beautiful city of Abbotsford, which is still my home today. Very quickly, these aspirations of being a member of Parliament disappeared, because my wife and I had four daughters. A member of Parliament is away from his or her family for long periods of time, 40%, 50%, 60% of the year. That is not good for raising a family, so I put those ambitions on the back burner. I got involved in local politics. In 1983, in Abbotsford, our MP at the time was Alex Patterson. He announced that he was retiring. There was a lot of excitement in Abbotsford, because Canada needed change. Brian Mulroney represented that change. We had a nomination contest, a very big one, with 12 different candidates vying to be the Conservative candidate in the upcoming federal election. My candidate, a man by the name of Ross Belsher, won that nomination; he went on to win the election and serve in the Mulroney government for two majority terms. He later became a good friend. Four years later, I had the chance to manage the campaign of the other MP representing the western part of Abbotsford, a man by the name of Bob Wenman. I was able to manage his campaign successfully. He also served two terms in that Mulroney majority government. I now had experience and was following the various issues that were playing out here in our capital city. I took note of the fact that Mr. Mulroney had a resolute character, where he identified the most important issues that needed to be addressed in Canada. One was Canada's competitiveness within the world economy. Mr. Mulroney proceeded to negotiate a free trade agreement with the United States. One has to understand that, back then, this was not necessarily universally popular. In fact, the naysayers came out. They said we were going to hollow out our economy, that Canada was going to lose its universal health care system and the Canada pension plan. Canada as we knew it would be gone; however, as we know, Brian Mulroney prevailed. He understood what was at stake. He spent the political capital that he had, and he prevailed. Canadians today are thankful that he did. By the way, all the fears of the naysayers were put to rest, because none of those fears ever materialized. Today we still rely on the successor to NAFTA as the most important economic agreement Canada has in the world. The reason I recount this is that when I was supporting the different candidates to be part of the Mulroney government as Brian Mulroney implemented his grand vision, a more robust and outward-looking vision for our country, little did I know back then that someday his work would intersect with mine in the House. Years later I was in fact elected to the House, and in 2011, I had the privilege and honour of serving as Canada's trade minister as the Harper government rolled out the most ambitious trade agenda our country had ever seen. We negotiated a trade agreement with the 27 countries of the European Union, the largest consumer market in the world. We negotiated trade agreements with some of our most trusted Asia-Pacific partners in the TPP. We negotiated trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Peru, and numerous investment agreements. The bottom line is this: The tone that had been set by Brian Mulroney and the work he had done in achieving the momentous and historic free trade agreement with the United States, and then later bringing Mexico into our North American partnership, would pay huge dividends as Canada continued to look outward at all those opportunities Canadians could have as we engaged in the global marketplace. He was a visionary, and I am so grateful I had the opportunity to benefit from his work. Today we benefit from the elimination of trade barriers, tariff barriers and non-tariff barriers, as we look outward. Canada today benefits from a comparative advantage as we do business around the world. Today Canadian companies have opportunities they would have never had if were not for Brian Mulroney. Let me close by saying that Brian Mulroney intuitively understood that he would be setting the stage for our country. He set the stage for subsequent governments to expand on the golden opportunities that he so deftly and courageously negotiated. Today our prosperity depends on freer and fairer trade with the world. We who followed Prime Minister Mulroney rode on the shoulders of a giant, a political giant and an economic giant. More than that, it can truly be said of him that Canada has lost one of its great Canadians. We all owe him and his family a debt of gratitude. To Mila, Caroline, Ben, Mark, Nicolas, their spouses and children I say thank you for sharing their husband, father and grandfather with us. Rest in peace, Prime Minister Mulroney.

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