—but yet here we are, so I am very grateful to have the opportunity to speak in front of this group and give you my two cents on legislation that's really important. I'm going to go really fast, because there's a lot of ground to cover in a short time.
First, when I was 23, I had everything going for me. I had just graduated from engineering. I was driving to a gold mine in northern Manitoba. I had a beautiful girlfriend. I was athletic. All that stuff was going well, and boom, I hit a moose with my car. The moose went through the windshield, the car went into the ditch, and it was a long time before I got to a hospital, as this was in 1996, before cellphones.
I was 23, and in an instant, I found myself completely paralyzed from the neck down. What does that mean? It means I cannot move below the neck. I do not feel a sense of touch, pain, or pleasure. I have no control of my bodily functions. I obviously have to rely on caregiving 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for the rest of my life.
I was told that if I were to survive, I would be in an institution. That's not what you want to hear. Mind you, after I was elected I did go back and say, “I don't think you meant the Parliament of Canada.”