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Member of the panel of chairs for the legislative committees

Hon. Michael Chong

  • Member of Parliament
  • Member of the panel of chairs for the legislative committees
  • Conservative
  • Wellington—Halton Hills
  • Ontario
  • Voting Attendance: 65%
  • Expenses Last Quarter: $120,269.09

  • Government Page
Context: House Hansard - 96 - Sep/15/22
Hon. Michael Chong (Wellington—Halton Hills, CPC)
  • Sep/15/22 12:07:21 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is with great sadness that I rise today to reflect, on my part and on behalf of the constituents of Wellington—Halton Hills, on the passing of Her Majesty the Queen. While Queen Elizabeth was our queen and our head of state, she was also a mother, a grandmother and a great-grandmother. My thoughts are with King Charles and with the royal family. During my time as a member of Parliament, I have been asked, “Who is the most important person you have ever met during your travels?” My response has always been, “The Queen.” She was a model of unflagging dedication to public service. At 21, she said, “My whole life whether it be long or short shall be devoted to your service.” She spent her whole life fulfilling that commitment. During the Second World War and before she became queen, like a million Canadians, she served in the armed forces and trained as a mechanic. The Queen's reign began on February 6, 1952. At that time, Louis St-Laurent was prime minister. Since then, she has worked with 12 Canadian prime ministers, and she has witnessed and overseen nation-building transformations of our country. For seven decades, she did everything Canada asked of her without crisis or controversy. The Supreme Court became firmly established as the final court of appeal in Canada during her reign, ending the final appeals to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. On February 15, 1965, she issued the royal proclamation that established the iconic red and white maple leaf as our national flag. In 1982, she came to this place, Parliament Hill, to sign the royal proclamation that repatriated our Constitution from the United Kingdom and reaffirmed our constitutional monarchy here in Canada. Queen Elizabeth was the only monarch I have ever known. She is the only monarch my wife Carrie and our children have ever known. She is the only monarch that most Canadians have ever known. She has been part of our lives over so many decades, in so many ways. When my father was a young man in Hong Kong, Queen Elizabeth was his queen. When he immigrated to Canada in 1952, Queen Elizabeth remained his queen. When I was a young boy, my cousins in Hong Kong and I used to exchange letters to keep up to date on what was going on in the family. We would write to each other, and on the letter mail we sent back and forth was a portrait of Her Majesty the Queen. In one direction it said “Canada” and in the other direction it said “Hong Kong”. These stamps made me realize as a young boy that what bound us together between Canada and Hong Kong was not just family ties, but also institutions based on freedoms, liberties and the rule of law. Today, millions of Hong Kongers remember Queen Elizabeth fondly, not just as a person but as an institution that represented freedoms and liberties that are now sadly being taken away. I remember as a young boy watching the patriation ceremony of 1982 here on Parliament Hill, where the Queen signed the royal proclamation that patriated our Constitution and established the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I also have fond memories of going to primary school in rural Ontario in the 1970s, when every single morning we would sing O Canada and God Save the Queen. For some, the Queen's passing has been an emotional time. My wife Carrie's Auntie Pam shared this memory with us on the Queen's passing, and asked us to share it with others. “On Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day, on June 24, 1959, my dad, myself and a few friends were on the roof of my apartment building overlooking Westmount City Hall, where the Queen and Prince Philip were being presented with a jug of maple syrup. My father shouted to his friends to hurry up to the front of the building, and the royal couple heard him, looked up, smiled and waved. It made his day. “The following day dad wanted to drive us to see the Royal Yacht Britannia and the Queen and Duke coming ashore. It was quite a long drive and en route a car door was opened in front of us and Dad had to swerve suddenly. On arrival at the ship, we walked a relatively short distance, and we were very close to the gangway. He suddenly collapsed and died instantly, and our lives changed dramatically. “The Queen and Prince Philip had to delay disembarking from the yacht while an ambulance took Dad away. I've always wondered what the Queen was told about the delay in disembarking from the Royal Yacht Britannia.” The Queen, our longest reigning monarch, reigned so long that her reign stretched across generations and across time. One could walk into a Royal Canadian Legion branch, a small branch in some small community in rural Canada, and see a portrait of a very young woman, about 25 years of age, and suddenly realize that it is the Queen, and realize that someone had carefully hung and preserved that portrait some 70 years ago on the wall of that legion. Many Canadian families have cookie tins, passed along from generation to generation, of the coronation that took place in 1952. They are brought out at Christmastime and filled with the recipes that have been passed from family generation to family generation. Carrie and I had the privilege of meeting Her Majesty the Queen and Prince Philip in 2010 during one of the more than 20 times she came to Canada. It was at a state dinner at the Royal York Hotel, where hundreds of guests were in attendance. She greeted every one of those guests, patiently greeting them in a waiting line. After dinner was completed, she met with the hotel workers who had served the dinner and cleaned the rooms, something she insisted on doing. Let me finish by saying that we shall not see the likes of Queen Elizabeth again. We mourn her passing. May she rest in peace and may she rise in glory.
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