Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by extending condolences on behalf of all my colleagues to the family of Ronald Duhamel.
I knew him for some years, and he was known to me and to all of us as a man of convictions, always respectful of his political adversaries. That is, I believe, what posterity will remember this parliamentarian from Manitoba for, this man who always ably represented his fellow citizens.
In 1963, when the Prime Minister was first elected as the member for Shawinigan, he said the following: “I entered this election campaign driven by duty, because it is the duty of a serious man to analyze the situation and examine the points of a political program to remedy what is not working right in Canada... It is a matter of drawing up the constitution anew, not among ten provinces, but between two nations”. Those were the words spoken at that time by a young lawyer from Shawinigan setting out on a long career in politics.