Mr. Speaker, it is a great pleasure for me to rise today to mark the 29th anniversary of the 1972 election held on October 30 of that year.
There are only five members of parliament elected or re-elected in that election who still serve here today. The Right Hon. Prime Minister, the hon. Deputy Prime Minister and the hon. member for Davenport were re-elected that year. Today there are only two MPs who were first elected that year: the right hon. member for Calgary Centre and I.
Then as now I was a proud member of the official opposition. In fact the right hon. member for Calgary Centre and I both served in the same caucus under the leadership of Mr. Stanfield. Then as now the centre right was split in the House of Commons, with the Conservatives as the official opposition and the Social Credit Party here also.
There is an old saying that those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. The lessons of those years are not lost on me, and I would venture to say they are not lost on the Prime Minister or the Deputy Prime Minister.
However I hope that my colleague and fellow classmate from 1972, the right hon. member for Calgary Centre, remembers those lessons too and will not become the Réal Caouette of 2001 or allow his party to become the true inheritors of the Social Credit legacy in this place.
In closing, I thank the voters of British Columbia for sending me to this place that year and in three subsequent elections.