Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the New Democrats in the House today I join with my colleagues to pay tribute to George Hees, honouring his long record of public service, military service and parliamentary service.
I had the opportunity to sit in the House of Commons with Mr. Hees for nine years. I echo the comments of the Minister of National Defence that George Hees was a House of Commons man and someone who gave to this place and to those who came here as new members an appropriate sense of the responsibility and also the joy and collegiality of being a member of Parliament.
I say with some regret that I do not always feel the House is as collegial as it was in previous Parliaments or as George Hees would have liked it to continue to be.
I was here for some of the exchanges between George Hees and former Prime Minister Trudeau. I remember very well the day when he stepped out and raised his dukes, so to speak, and challenged the Prime Minister in a kidding sort of way that perhaps they could settle the matter outside.
I remember very well his daily walks. I used to run into him near the flame and elsewhere because I have the habit of going for a walk myself. Many times I had the opportunity to have informal conversations with Mr. Hees and I came to like him very much.
I swam at the Chateau Laurier and I used to talk to him there. He was just that kind of person you could get to know. He was as very interested in younger people who had been elected to Parliament. He would give you a bit of the history of this place and get you to have the right feel for your job.
An article in the Globe and Mail this morning entitled ``Lives Lived'' was about George Hees. For the record, because I know he would not want the memory of another happy warrior in this place to be misreported, when he beat Pauline Jewett in 1965 she was not a Socialist, she was a Liberal. She became a Socialist later when she became more successful.
When George Hees became the Minister of Veterans Affairs in 1985 my case work with respect to veterans affairs dropped just like that. As Minister of Veterans Affairs he must have told the bureaucrats in the civil service: "Clean up your act. I want you to give the benefit of the doubt to veterans. I do not want anymore of this stalling and delaying". It made a real difference. Anybody who was a member of Parliament could see it at that time. Your case load with respect to veterans affairs literally disappeared overnight when George Hees became the Minister of Veterans Affairs. I want to pay tribute to that particular element of his career.
On behalf of the NDP I extend our condolences to his family. I am very sorry on a personal level that he is no longer with us.