Mr. Speaker, I feel extremely privileged to be able to pay tribute to our dear friend and colleague, David Orlikow. I do so on behalf of the New Democratic Party caucus, my leader, and particularly those members from Manitoba, such as the member for Winnipeg—Transcona, who had a very close association with David for many years.
The constituency that I was elected to serve on June 2 is largely David Orlikow territory. I am reminded of that daily by his former constituents.
My personal goal is to achieve David Orlikow's high standards of service and his great fighting spirit. My hope today is to do justice to David Orlikow's memory on behalf of all of his constituents in Winnipeg North who were served so well and so faithfully by David Orlikow throughout his 26 years as a member of Parliament.
It is not an easy task to try to convey in the fullest sense the kind of contribution he made to our party, to his community and to his country; nor is it an easy task to capture the sense of great loss which we all feel at this time.
On behalf of everyone in this House I extend expressions of deep sympathy to his daughter, Leslie, his grandchildren and all members of his family.
Politics and the pursuit of social justice were David Orlikow's life work. He served in public life for 43 years and he served at all levels of government: school trustee, alderperson, member of the Manitoba Legislative Assembly and member of Parliament for Winnipeg North between 1962 and 1988.
David Orlikow died on January 19, a few months short of his 80th birthday, fighting to the very end. He was, as we always knew him, a fighter for social justice, always demanding fair policies when it came to immigration policies, refugee policies, workers rights, always associated with the labour movement and free collective bargaining and a very important part of our party as a founding member of the New Democratic Party and a lifetime member of the CCF and the NDP.
I am sure there is not a person in this Chamber who knew David and worked with him or received one of his many phone calls who did not end up feeling a great sense of admiration and respect for David Orlikow.
We remember David Orlikow for his devotion to the people he was elected to serve, the priority he gave to constituency concerns and problem solving, his determination to achieve fairness one case at a time, his tenacious, unapologetic, no frills approach to getting the job done and his dogged persistence to pursue any injustice or any issue he felt was important. Just look at his record.
I did a quick count of all his House of Commons entries between 1962 and 1988 and came up with a staggering total of 2,906, and he did it all without a lot of fanfare and not much media attention. However, when he did get a headline we knew what David stood for. We knew how he saw his purpose as a member of Parliament. Speaking out against poverty, standing up for equality and fighting the banks, that was David Orlikow. Imagine what he would be saying today about the proposed bank merger.
That fighting spirit came through right to the end. He had conversations with several of us, including the member for Burnaby—Douglas, just days before he died about the need to convince the Canadian government to extend compensation to all the families of the victims of the Allan Institute and the CIA brainwashing experiments.
Today we feel the loss of a great parliamentarian, a social activist, a mentor, a friend and a colleague. Let us honour his memory by recommitting ourselves to achieving David Orlikow's high standards of political representation, public service and human compassion.