Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise to speak on this motion today. It was very much an honour for me to be one of the seconders of the motion and it is certainly an honour to support it. I compliment the member for Markham for bringing it forward.
It is interesting to listen to all the members. Many of us here have met Nelson Mandela. It seems that we all remember that first meeting very clearly. I am one of those very fortunate people who has met Nelson Mandela and I remember exactly the day that I met him. I remember the circumstances. He had just been released from 27 years in prison. He came to Canada at Canada's invitation to speak to all of us in a joint session of the House of Commons and the Senate to encourage us to support his opposition to apartheid and to support democracy in his country.
At the time I met him it struck me that this man had just come out of jail after 27 years. I was 45 at the time and would have been 17 when he went into jail. I thought of all the things that I experienced in that time between the age of 17 and the age of 45 years, and I thought of all of that part of his life that he missed while he was breaking rocks in the prison on Robben Island.
It was an incredible experience. We met him at the airport and he treated us like the heroes. He treated us with the respect. It was an awesome experience which I will never forget. He exuded confidence. He came across as the most humble person and he treated us like the honourable people, when it should have been the reverse. It was truly an experience. As we can see, every person here who has met Nelson Mandela will never forget that visit.
During that visit Mr. Mandela went to Toronto, where tens of thousands of Canadians went out in the streets to meet him, just to say hi, show respect to him and listen to his words. He was given a hero's welcome in Toronto. Here in the House he addressed a joint session of the Commons and the Senate, an honour usually reserved for heads of state, and of course at that time he was not a head of state. He would be later on, but in 1990 he was not, having just come out of prison. Apartheid was still in place. Even with all the things he was put through, in the House he showed the same humility and urged us to continue the battle to help him eliminate apartheid in his country.
He had an outstanding career, a career of outstanding accomplishments.
One of the members who spoke before me referred to courage and vision and those are good words to describe Nelson Mandela. He was and is a man of courage and vision, which has certainly led to his stature and reputation around the world as one of the world's citizens who has set an example for all of us.
Nelson Mandela has done an incredible job of creating firsts. He established the first black law firm in South Africa. He was the first democratically elected president of South Africa. He was one of the very first student activists in South Africa. From the time he was a very young person he was outspoken and committed and a very effective activist, so effective that he was even expelled from school, which started a long and interesting career in activism for him. Nelson Mandela has received 50 international university honorary degrees as well as being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Nelson Mandela raises the bar for all of us. He raises the bar for all humanity. We totally support this motion and we will welcome Mr. Mandela as an honorary citizen of Canada.