Thank you, Speaker—

Speaker, I never had the chance to know Mr. Kolyn, but as I learned about him in the preparation of this tribute, it painted a picture of the man I believed him to be. He was a fighter: someone who wouldn’t give up. He ran several times before he successfully took his seat in this chamber over a generation ago.

He was a man of faith, an Orthodox Christian, which established his beliefs and his values. And he was proud of his Ukrainian roots and actively involved in the Ukrainian National Federation. He wanted to improve the lives of the people in the community he represented, as demonstrated by his help in securing investments for the Queensway General Hospital, now named the Queensway Health Centre.

He was a forward thinker, as demonstrated by the problems he sought to fix here a generation ago. He had concerns about the impact of changing technology on people’s lives. With the growing use of computers and other similar technologies in the 1980s, he knew that proper ergonomics would be key to office workplace safety and efficiency of the rapidly changing present and future. As such, his private member’s bill aimed to improve the health and safety of those using video display terminals, a technology that had grown in use during his time here in the Legislature.

He was a man of strong opinions and he wasn’t afraid to argue them. He could dish it, but he could also take it, as well. When he won a bid to write an editorial column in the Sun, he praised the journalists of the time who pulled no punches in critiquing the government, of which Mr. Kolyn was a part. Mr. Kolyn wrote at that time, “Those of us in politics need an occasional reminder of our responsibility to serve the people.”

But above all, he was a family man, and I am sure of all the things that defined him, this was the most important. I know this because I had the pleasure to speak with his daughter Linda. She shared her sister Donna’s eulogy for him and the obituary they both wrote together, the story of a man’s life at its end, as told by his loving and devoted children.

From her words I saw a man that no newspaper clipping could capture: Sunday afternoons lying on the couch with his children, listening to classical music; patiently teaching them to ride a bike; reading to them and later encouraging them to pursue their highest education and to follow their dreams; big family dinners punctuated with good-natured arguing on the topics of the day, because being a politician is a lifelong condition and its symptoms present often years before onset of the bug; his transformation from loving father to loving grandfather, a role that he gave his all to and more; his love for his soulmate, his wife, Stephanie, together for almost 65 years, and the tender care he had for her in her last and most difficult years.

Mr. Kolyn, Al, lived a long and full life. He passed away at age 91, surrounded by his deeply loving family. We remember him here today, a man who pursued politics for the right reasons and made it because he never gave up, a man of conviction and faith, a man who raised a family and loved them dearly. May he rest in peace and may God bless his soul.