It is an honour to rise on behalf of the official opposition to pay tribute to William Darcy McKeough, who served as the member of provincial Parliament for Chatham–Kent for 15 years, from 1963 to 1978, for the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario. Mr. McKeough passed away at the age of 90 on November 29, 2023. He is survived by his sons, Walker Stewart McKeough and James Grant McKeough; his daughter-in-law, Julia Jen; his granddaughter, Kate Reagan McKeough; and his sister-in-law, Eleanor Tow Walker.

I’d like to as well acknowledge the friends of Mr. McKeough who are here in the Legislature today: David Warner, Speaker during the 35th Parliament; Steve Gilchrist, MPP for Scarborough East during the 36th and 37th Parliaments; Phil Gillies, MPP for Brantford during the 32nd and 33rd Parliaments; and certainly Judy Marsales, a fellow Hamiltonian, a fellow MPP for Hamilton West. Welcome to the Legislature.

Mr. McKeough was born on January 31, 1933, in Chatham, and educated at Central and Cedar Springs public schools and Ridley College in St. Catharines. After receiving a bachelor of arts from the University of Western Ontario in 1954, Mr. McKeough returned home to Chatham to learn the family business.

Madam Speaker, remarkably, the McKeough family has a tradition of holding public office which dates back to 1847. That predates Confederation. It actually is older than the carvings above your chair on the walls here today. That is a remarkable family tradition of public service. So in 1959, at the age of 26, it was understandable that Mr. McKeough followed this fine family tradition when he became the sixth member of his family to hold public office, as a member of Chatham city council. It’s really quite remarkable.

After four years serving on city council as chairman of the city’s finance committee and on the planning board, Mr. McKeough entered provincial politics as the Progressive Conservative member for Kent West in 1963. Three years later, he was included in Premier John Robarts’s cabinet as a minister without portfolio. In 1967, he became the Minister of Municipal Affairs. He was then appointed Treasurer and Minister of Economics in 1971. In 1973, he was given the additional task of Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs. He was appointed the province’s first Minister of Energy.

He was known as a workaholic, and certainly Mr. McKeough was given more and more responsibility during Premier Bill Davis’s government, so much so that he was known as the “minister of everything.” In his last three years as a public servant, he served as Treasurer and Minister of Economics and Intergovernmental Affairs. Wow—that’s quite a record.

Mr. McKeough helped to establish regional governance during this time. Between 1968 and 1975, he helped pave the way for three restructured and 11 regional governments, and nearly 50 years later, many of these regional governments are still together—that’s for the time being, anyway—so good work on his part.

He had a keen ability to steer Ontario through many turbulent economic waters, and he did this through his relationship with the Liberal Party’s federal finance minister and future Prime Minister, John Turner. They collaborated across partisan lines in service of the greater good.

Mr. McKeough’s son Jamie is quoted as saying that his father loved nothing more than to battle with NDP leader Stephen Lewis in the Legislature, “then go out for drinks with him ... afterwards. It was a different time, and that love of politics never left him.”

Mr. McKeough understood the important role elected officials played in upholding the values of democracy and our collective duty to represent not only our needs but the needs of those that we are all elected to serve in this House. In April 1976, Mr. McKeough quoted British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli as saying, “I repeat ... that all power is a trust; that we are accountable for its exercise; that from the people, and for the people, all springs, and all must exist”—wise words for all of us here today.

In a time when we are facing climate change and losing precious farmlands, Mr. McKeough was ahead of his time with his recognition that, “Environmental quality must be enhanced and resources properly managed in the interests of both current and future populations.” And in regard to farmland and the loss of farmland, he said that “we should in future, as we have in the past, protect the integrity of the use of fertile land for food production.”

Mr. McKeough, after he retired from politics, was made an officer of the Order of Canada in 1994 for his successful business ventures and fundraising efforts on behalf of educational, medical, research and cultural institutions. He was known locally as “the Duke of Kent,” and he was certainly loved and respected by many. As we can see here, he certainly made his mark on our province.

So on behalf of the Ontario NDP caucus, let me again say that it has been an honour to pay tribute to William Darcy McKeough. To his family, I will say I did not have the honour of meeting Mr. McKeough but, in researching this tribute that I paid, I learned very much from him, especially his commitment to public service and the honour and the trust that we are all embodied with when we are elected in this House.

I also would like to say that I certainly hope your family keeps up that fine, fine tradition of holding public office. That would be the seventh generation, so that would be an incredible legacy to uphold, and I look forward to hearing that that is the case.

Let me say to his family and his friends, we give thanks for his life, and we offer condolences to his loved ones and his friends. Thank you so much for allowing me to speak on his behalf. May his memory be a blessing.