Mr. Speaker, I am privileged, yet saddened, to rise to honour my former boss, my mentor and my friend, Robert Sopuck. I thank all my colleagues for allowing me this opportunity to honour this great Canadian, the former member of Parliament for Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa.
Robert, or Bob as he was known by his many friends, passed away suddenly, but peacefully, last week in his home near Lake Audy, Manitoba. He is survived by his beloved wife, Caroline; two children, Tony, and his wife Lainee, and his daughter, Marsha, and husband Graham; three grandchildren, who he simply loved to teach about the outdoors, Eden, Senon and Esmee; by his sister, Joyce, and brother, Tim; by many nieces and nephews; and by so many other loved ones across the country who simply cherished Bob.
I want to offer, on behalf of the Conservative Party, our appreciation to Bob's family for sharing him with us, particularly his beloved wife, who he often referred to so proudly as “the inestimable Caroline.” His love for her serves as an inspiration for all of us who have been lucky enough to witness it.
Today I hope to do justice to a great parliamentarian, and a great man, and I apologize in advance as I may get emotional. I have some family with us today. My wife and I were married, but we had our big wedding celebration on Saturday, and we were expecting Bob and Caroline to be with us.
Back in 2016, I was hired by Bob after a very robust interview process. I went to his office and we talked about life and politics for about two hours over a scotch. He cared about the person, not the résumé. Little did I know at that time the profound impact he would have on my life.
Bob was described by a newspaper he surely never read, the Toronto Star, as the “right-wing environmentalist”, which is actually a very good way to describe him. However, he was not an environmentalist, he was a conservationist. He believed that those who lived, worked and played on the land were our best conservationists and the true environmentalists. He recognized the value of modern agriculture, of ranching, of natural resource development and all of the rural communities that those industries supported. He was an avid outdoorsman, a true conservationist himself, and perhaps the strongest advocate that hunters, anglers and trappers in Canada have ever had.
Bob was born to parents of eastern European descent and immigration, and while he was raised in the city, he spent his summers in Whiteshell, where he learned his love of the outdoors. He caught his first fish at the age of four with his father, which kicked off a life of outdoor pursuits.
Bob went on to receive an honours degree in science from the University of Manitoba, and then a Master of Fishery Science from an ivy league school, Cornell University, with a particular focus on rainbow trout. From there, he held a wide variety of careers in land, water and wildlife conservation. He worked as a fisheries biologist at both the provincial and federal levels before he decided he wanted to purchase a beautiful, sprawling piece of farmland near Lake Audy, just south of his beloved national park, Riding Mountain National Park, on which he built with his own hands a beautiful, secluded log home.
He spent a lot of time in the Arctic and did a lot of work there, focusing on Arctic char research, and had so many amazing stories. He had such respect for the people he had the chance to live with, the Inuit. He did some of the earliest environmental impact research on the long-proposed Mackenzie Valley pipeline, and I think one of his greatest regrets is that pipeline never came to fruition.
Bob was a farmer. He was a guide. He was an outfitter. He was the environmental adviser for the former premier of Manitoba, Gary Filmon. He went on to be the environmental director at the Pine Falls paper plant, improving water quality, quantitatively. He worked for Delta Waterfowl, and after retiring from this place, returned as a board member there. He did environmental monitoring in the oil sands. He understood policy, because his boots were on the ground.
He often joked, when somebody would introduce him to do a speech, that it was reasonable to think “Can this guy not keep a job?”, but those jobs and those experiences formed his views on conservation and on natural resource development and the rural way of life.
I list this depth of careers because it highlights that he earned his stripes, which allowed him to be an incredible advocate and an even better member of Parliament.
Bob was a brilliant communicator, and he knew how important effective communications were, that words mattered. He was brilliant not because he was suave, some fast-talking salesman-type guy, but because he was authentic, honest, thoughtful, direct, articulate and had a heck of a vocabulary on him. He was wicked smart, and he always preferred to stand up for the little guy. He was not willing to lay down to the mobs, to the loud minority that wanted to shout down views like his at times. It was an inspiration when he so proudly and so frequently stood up and bluntly said what needed to be said. He had been doing it for decades.
Starting back in 2001, Bob wrote a regular column with the Winnipeg Free Press, in which he refused to shy away from issues like hunting and angling. Those essays beautifully articulated the spirituality and connection to family and nature that so many millions of Canadians enjoy today. He explained why so many of us felt that it was vital to protect the rights of those people and their ability to take part in those traditional heritage activities.
He went on to compile these essays into a wonderful book, A Life Outdoors, which, looking back while I was reading it last night, I think is an unintentional biography, from catching that first fish with his dad at four years old to his life as that avid outdoorsman. It is a wonderful book. I would encourage people to pick it up, particularly if they enjoy outdoor activities. It also has some phenomenal recipes for wild game, which I have tasted and are very good.
Bob had the chance to elevate those communication skills and decided to run for office back in 2010. He ran because he knew he had something to offer. He wanted to make a difference and to fight for what he believed in. That is what he did in this place every single day of his nine years as a member of Parliament.
Bob had an incredible understanding, which I was so lucky to have witnessed, of what this job was. The first was, obviously, to represent our local communities, to fight and advocate for them, and try to get things done for them. This is something that each and every one of us in the House works to do. The second was to do what was right for Canada, the big-picture country that has diverse views and many challenges at times, to fight for what was right and to fight with that same level of passion that he did for the communities he so proudly represented.
He knew his constituents. He knew their way of life, their values, their struggles, their challenges, their hopes, their dreams and their aspirations. He had the benefit that he had worked in politics in his early days with the Manitoba government, as had his wife, Caroline, which allowed him to be all the more effective. He knew when to be loud, when it made sense to pick a fight, and do it publicly, to try to move the needle on something. He also knew when it made more sense to keep it behind the scenes to try to quietly get things done. He knew to keep it on the ice, and that is why he was so respected and liked by colleagues from across party lines.
Locally, he was so proud to have helped deliver funding to pave Highway 10 through Riding Mountain National Park. Anybody who knows the area or lives in area and commutes through it knows how important it is. Anyone who has the chance to visit that beautiful national park will be a benefactor of the work he did lobbying to get that done, as has anyone who benefited from funding through the recreational fisheries conservation partnership program.
That program was launched back in 2013 and supported fisheries habitat restoration projects led by recreational angling groups, fisheries groups and conservation groups. There are lakes across Canada where spawning habitat has been restored, aerators have been installed and anglers will reap the benefits today, tomorrow and for the years ahead. Just as Bob wanted, it was done with the people who care so much about the natural world, who will get in hip waders, get into the water and want to make meaningful impacts on our fishery stocks. He knew the best people were those who wanted to get things done, who not only wanted to talk about doing things but they put their money where their mouth was.
Through perseverance, persuasion and perhaps just sheer stubbornness, he was able to convince former Finance Minister Flaherty and Prime Minister Harper to enable this plan, and it is an ever-lasting legacy for the projects that it undertook. It would never have happened without Bob Sopuck. I would go so far as to argue that, single-handedly, Bob has saved more fish in our country than anyone else ever has.
Throughout his career, he was an effective and long-time member of the fisheries committee and loved every minute of it. I think his colleagues appreciated him there, too. That committee was always, and I think still is, rather cordial with many unanimous reports. He was also on the environment committee, which at times is a little less polite.
Bob was a pit bull. Given his Ivy League education and his series of careers prior to being elected, not many people were going to best him at any topic at those two committees. That included the bureaucrats who I remember once telling Bob, whenever he was there, that they knew they had to be on their toes. He was so very proud of that. He just revelled in the opportunity to rip apart some pompous executive who thought they could get away with saying things that were not actual answers. He would fight to get the answers and he would run circles around them.
Now, I am a proud member of the environment committee, and the lessons I have learned could not be more clear. Some of those officials now know where I learned it from. I have to mention the Fisheries Act specifically, because Bob wrote a paper back in 2001 entitled “The Federalization of Prairie Freshwater”, which was the policy framework used by the Harper government when making important changes to the Fisheries Act.
It was 10 years after he wrote it that the catalyst for those changes finally happened: it was overland flooding in Saskatchewan. At the Craven country jamboree, threatened due to excess rain, a campground was unable to be pumped because DFO declared there was water there now, so clearly fish could be there. There was habitat so we had to prevent it from being pumped. Normal person logic said that was not really fish habitat, it was a campground, but it was the definition of fish habitat in the act that was the problem.
Bob knew it and identified it years earlier. He went on to lead the charge drafting that legislation to make those important changes to stop ridiculous overreach from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans that had a real impact on rural Canadians and our prosperity. He understood that unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats had to be kept in check, that they did not understand our way of life, that he had to be involved in educating them.
Bob was the founder of our Conservative hunting and angling caucus with the help of his close friend, the member for Red Deer—Lacombe. That member has carried the torch ever since. I know for a fact he will not only keep Bob's legacy alive, but he will be the steadfast advocate that community needs and will continue to work on their behalf. He is joined by so many of my Conservative colleagues, such as the member for North Okanagan—Shuswap, who are dedicated to protecting these communities. There are so many more; they know who they are, and it is appreciated.
There are millions of law-abiding firearms owners in this country, of hunters, of anglers, of people who contribute directly to enhancing our wildlife populations, and as Bob would always say, are the environment's best friends. We would not think communities like this necessarily need protecting, but, unfortunately, they do. For the most part, rural Canadians do not really care what happens in big cities. They just kind of want to be left alone, but for some reason, many of those radical environmental and animal rights activists living in their concrete jungles have a real keen interest in what happens on our private landscapes.
We need great MPs like my colleagues to continue to stand up for that now in his honour. I am proud to join those efforts and will continue to take part in any of those future fights. When I think back to some of the fights, he revelled in a good fight. One I remember he led the charge on, which was important, was Bill C-246. It was an animal rights bill that would transfer human rights to animals. What it was going to do was destroy modern agriculture, animal livestock agriculture. It was going to destroy hunting and angling in this community.
He led with help from across party lines, using those relationships he had built by being the guy he was, to kill that legislation. I remember when the RCMP decided to try to appease those animal rights activists and get rid of the iconic muskrat hat for Mounties, Bob was having none of that. He wanted to protect the livelihood of those trappers across the country and the warmth of our frontline police officers serving in our northern communities. He walked the walk and he was a true friend of the trapping community. Many of us may remember him strutting around here with a fur jacket, with his own muskrat hat and these big old skunk mitts. He was the real deal.
Bob was always on the lookout for government overreach, or efforts that would impact the people he was sent here to represent, which is why he was great. He was not just about defending, he was vocal in supporting and promoting, proactively working to set the stage to communicate with the average person who otherwise might not think about these issues or even realize they cared about them. In many cases, these were urban audiences, like when he was writing for the Winnipeg Free Press.
What might be less known is the impact he had on so many people, directly, personally, individually and, particularly, on young people. I think it is important to highlight the legacy that this leaves behind. Bob freely shared his wisdom and his wealth of knowledge with young people around him, understanding that it was not just about today, that it was about tomorrow. Anything he could do to nurture the next generation, he was willing to do.
He was a mentor to so many of us, to those who worked directly for him and to our friends he got to know, he would spend time with and to whom he would give, generously, of his time. We, each and every one of us, loved him. He gave so much time. He would answer questions candidly, provide advice when asked and sometimes when not asked. He would share his life experiences and those incredible stories that he had amassed over that wonderful life of his. He treated us like part of the team or the family, which is why I think he was referred to as Uncle Bob by so many people. He made us believe that we actually had something to contribute, that we mattered.
I know I am going to miss some names on the list, but I want to give a bit of a scale of some who have been impacted. I think of Duncan, Brett, Michael, Blake, Olivier, Jay, Megan and the Simms boys, just to name a few. Just like him, he wanted us to be authentic and humble. He wanted us to be proud of where we were, what we were doing, where we were going and what it meant.
Simply put, he wanted each one of us to believe in ourselves and he made that a little bit easier. He loved telling stories and he had so many profound statements. I do not know what to call them other than Bob-isms. I can think of a couple, one of which was, “I take the view that if you give up fat, sugar, and alcohol too, you may not live longer, it will just feel that way.”
On a more serious note, there are two quotes. “Life is about chapters. You have to turn the page on one before you can start the next.” “Nothing lasts forever, and nothing stays the same.”
He lived in the now. He was not one for birthdays or arbitrary reasons to celebrate. He preferred milestones and achievements. He espoused sharing stories of the past, not living them, of looking to the future but not dwelling on it, enjoying the moment, and being proud and happy with where you were, being rational and thoughtful, asking questions and acting with purpose, and recognizing that the best way to achieve success was to do it with passion and to embrace the challenge in front of us and to find the opportunity within it.
When Bob retired, our relationship did not just stop like we would expect with many bosses and their employees. He called in regularly to catch up. I would go visit Bob and Caroline at the farm. He was the first to pledge a donation when I called him with the crazy idea that I was going to run for politics. He was the one I had introduce me at the nomination campaign launch. He has been by my side since the day we met and I will forever appreciate his friendship, as I know so many others do.
The best part is that I am not unique. There are so many others. I am part of a massive group of people to whom he has meant more than he can ever know. I am going to miss Bob. I thought we had more calls. I thought we had more business on the farm ahead of us. I will be forever grateful for all he has done for me.
In closing, I want to share a quote from one of Bob's favourite writers, Henry David Thoreau. “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
Bob lived and lived well. He was a great Canadian and he will live on in all of us who had the privilege to know him. I cannot think of any higher achievement, any higher recognition of a life well lived, than having those who knew us proudly say, after we are gone, that we lost one of the good ones but that I am happy I knew him.
He achieved that. We will miss him and we will never forget.
