By the way, he's got a great father-in-law. I love this story. I bumped into him at the airport. He walked up and introduced himself—and you never know at airports, right?—and we shook hands, and he said he was so-and-so's father-in-law. He said, “Yes, I've got to tell you that when I first met the guy I wasn't all that impressed when he told me he wanted to get into politics, but it turns out that he's a pretty good guy.” At this stage, on a personal level, I would agree with him.
It gives me a chance to give a well-deserved compliment, if you'll allow me, Chair, to a Conservative, David Sweet, who, like Filomena Tassi, was the government go-to person in Hamilton—for a much longer period of time—but didn't have the benefit of being a cabinet minister to make these things happen. I know the difference. I was the regional cabinet minister. We had three or four of us, but I was the designated regional minister responsible for the entire region. I know what that job is. There would be lineups outside my constituency office. Virtually everybody had to see me, but at least I was a minister and I had the means to be at cabinet meetings. I had access to other ministers, and I could get into files, and I had the staff support to do it.
Madam Tassi, like David Sweet—and David Sweet did it for all that time—did not have the benefit of a cabinet base to be the regional minister. I have to say—I have said this before publicly—as much as David Sweet and I are about as far apart ideologically as you're ever going to find, he did one hell of a job as our regional representative, as our government representative.
For the Innovation Park, which bordered on his riding and mine.... In fact, you'd almost need a survey to accurately define the line of demarcation between his riding and mine where the Innovation Park is.
Filomena, that's now your riding and, of course, that site is the old Westinghouse site, as those of us who are long-time Hamiltonians would call it. Everything is known by what it used to be.
That is an amazing centre. I know that Filomena is very proud to represent that area. I have a little piece of that property. That's why I say that it's a little mixed, but the point I'm making is that, yes, that fund is the fund that money came from, I believe, and the Innovation Park on Longwood Road in Filomena Tassi's riding in Hamilton is a major success. It's something that I would not only say was a good thing but, as I said at the time and would repeat, is a positive thing.
I have another one for you, too, Hamilton related, just to give you your due. When John Baird was the environment minister, we wanted funding for Randle Reef. Again, Filomena knows the importance of Randle Reef. That has been on the docket now for a decade and a half, I think. We've been looking for funding from all three orders of government. It is one of the known toxic hot spots of the Great Lakes. I went to John not long after they formed the government, because I knew John from our days at Queen's Park. To his credit, David Sweet had gone to him right away, making the case. It's in my riding. The waterfront is in my riding, not David's, and yet. to his credit, he was all over it, with the government and with John.
I went to John and said, look, anything I can do, up to and including...but you do this and I'll say nothing but nice things about your government. Now, again, remember that at the time we had Harper, the environment...there was not exactly a lot of positive stuff, so something positive there was worth its weight in political gold. Yes, that was my strategy. Again, that's the experience of being an opposition member, because what he needed from me was time. What he was saying to me was that he needed some manoeuvring room and me being on my feet in the House drawing attention to it and putting pressure on it was actually not going to help.
I offered the two things I thought he wanted. I offered to stay quiet, which is offering a lot—you all know why—and I said that if he did it, I would say really nice things about his government, because he would deserve it. To cut a long story short, he held me to that. He called me up and said, “Well, Dave, I have two things to tell you: number one, the funding is going to be there, and number two, so are you.” He had me in the green room. They made hay of it. They marched me in there, profiled me, and said, “Even Mr. Christopherson is saying wonderful things.”
I did say wonderful things. I paid that price. But you know what? At the end of the day, it was the right thing. That's part of the job of an opposition member. Sometimes what you have to do is stand up and holler from the rooftops when something is wrong, and other times you need to be strategically smart, shut up, and take yes for an answer.
Again, to his credit, David Sweet played a key role in making that happen, and he did it without benefit of a cabinet position, just as Filomena did up until the recent appointment of our new cabinet minister in Burlington. I always give credit for that, because I know how tough that is. I did it in being a minister, and a relatively senior one at that. I can't imagine what it would be like to be the regional government go-to person and not have that behind you and to still do an effective job. Both David Sweet and Filomena Tassi did that, and they deserve that credit. I am glad to say so.