Mr. Speaker, we learned last week of the sudden passing of Dr. C. Beverley Koester, the former Clerk of the House of Commons. I wish to say a few words of tribute to him.
Dr. Koester was born in Regina in 1926 and was educated at Royal Roads Military College, the University of Saskatchewan and the University of Alberta. He served in the Royal Canadian Navy and the RCN Reserve and retired with the rank of Lieutenant Commander.
After a period of teaching history, he joined the staff of the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan where he served as Clerk from 1960 to 1969 when he joined the faculty of the University of Regina.
He was the head of the university's history department when the government of the day invited him to become Clerk Assistant of the House of Commons. He was promoted in 1979 to Clerk of the House, thus becoming my boss. He held that position until 1986, and I must say that I, and all of the House of Commons staff, I believe, found him to be an excellent boss.
Dr. Koester brought to the table the knowledge and wisdom of a scholar while at the same time providing the House his own determined leadership in modernizing our administration.
I had the good fortune both to serve as part of that administration when he was here and later to be a member of the House of Commons during the latter part of his tenure as Clerk. In both capacities I was able to appreciate his sagacity and his foresightedness. It was a mark of his accomplishment that when he retired he was succeeded for the first time by a career House of Commons servant.
On behalf of the members of the government, and dare I say as a former staffer, the employees of the House of Commons, I wish to express my sincere sympathies to Dr. Koester's wife and children on the passing of a truly fine man.