Mr. Speaker, I echo the remarks of the hon. member for Saint-Hubert and the hon. member for Beaver River in the gracious tribute they have paid to our parliamentary Librarian Emeritus. Erik Spicer served for 33 years at the rank of deputy minister. That must be a record of achievement for Ottawa. He has presided over the transition of the Library from the classic library formation to the electronic age, at the same time conserving the immense richness of the past of the accumulated collections.
A librarian sometimes does not have the time to read his books he is so busy. However, this is a gentleman who has read books, a cultivated, witty, articulate gentleman. He has recognized, as Solon did, that wise law making rests upon wise study of the past of the accumulated wisdom in books. One cannot separate a library from the business of making laws. They go together.
It is in this sense that the Library of Parliament represents a treasure house. It is the jewel in the crown in a real sense in this large parliamentary edifice over which you preside, Mr. Speaker.
What Erik Spicer has done, the co-operation he has given, the great impartiality, the openness with which he has presided over the researchers-and never forget we have a magnificent research staff freely available to all parties, to people of all opinions within the House-has brought this together, concentrated in his own very unique personality. We shall all miss him.
We wish him, his wife and his family a pleasant and I am sure an intellectually active retirement. Thank you very much for accepting the treasure of Parliament when you were appointed Librarian, for conserving it, for adding to it, for augmenting it and making it one of the great institutions of the Commonwealth, of the world which has inherited its parliamentary traditions ultimately from the Greeks and Romans and the Britons and the French and all the new cultures that our country represents.
Thank you, sir, and a pleasant and honourable retirement which you have so richly earned.