Madam Speaker, as this is my first speech in this House, I would like to take the opportunity to congratulate the Speaker on his election and as well, to you, Madam Speaker, on your appointment.
I would also like to take the opportunity to congratulate all members who have just been elected to this 35th Parliament of Canada. It is a historic time for all of us and a new era. I am certainly looking forward to the opportunity to participate with some humility.
I certainly want to thank the constituents of the Peace River riding for their confidence in me and also my family who has given me a great deal of support in the two years it has taken to achieve the goal of becoming a member of Parliament. I would also like to thank a number of friends in the riding.
I would just like to relate the story of when I was home at Christmas. Somebody asked me how I was making out and I said I was starting to feel a little bit more comfortable in the House. However, they reminded me that I should not really get to feel too comfortable here. I think that is a good piece of advice.
I just want to tell the House a little bit about the Peace River riding. My colleague from Athabasca has told us about his riding. We share a boundary. Together we represent sort of the northern half of Alberta. It is an extremely big riding, one of the largest ridings in Canada. The border on the west is the British Columbia border and on the north the Northwest Territories.
Just a little bit of history about the Peace River riding: Some 200 years ago there were two warring Indian tribes. They had gathered on the banks of the Peace River, a river that was not named at that point, for peace negotiations and therefore the name came about as the Peace River.
It was an area that was a main artery to opening up western Canada. Alexander Mackenzie used that route to the Pacific Ocean in 1793, some 200 years ago.
The area in general was settled in the early 1900s by immigrants from Europe, the United States, as well as people from eastern Canada developing a new territory. They were looking for new opportunities.