Mr. Speaker, I never knew the real Mackenzie King, so I cannot judge whether the current Prime Minister is a reincarnation. They both communed famously with people who were not there. Both moved forward sideways and then denied having moved at all.
On political issues of the utmost importance, both expressed themselves in a completely incomprehensible fashion. The current Prime Minister—what an improvement—can be equally incomprehensible in both official languages. One might even wonder if he is not speaking some new official language of his own.
Among the Prime Minister's contributions is the fact that in the election of 1972 I would never have got here without him. He was, as my colleague for Qu'Appelle reminded us, the minister responsible for national parks where, among other things, no local government was allowed.
He came to Jasper to meet a throng of citizens outraged by his policies and he told them, “If you don't like things here, there is a road going east, and a road going west”. Some in the House will be familiar with that diplomatic style.
Certainly it helped me to take the road to Ottawa, defeating a very good Liberal and a friend of the Prime Minister, Allen Sulatycky, who now, miraculously, and on his merit, is associate Chief Justice of the Court of Queen's Bench of Alberta. In Alberta at least, the Prime Minister appoints good judges.
These 40 year tributes are unusual. There was one for Mr. Diefenbaker, who had served 39 years, 6 months and 19 days, but he had to die first. There was one for Herb Gray, who had served 39 years, 6 months and 26 days, but he had to leave first.
In tributes, it is customary to point out good deeds. I will therefore not recall recent events today. As parliamentarians, and as Canadians, the Prime Minister and I have profound differences of opinion. And, of course, in all instances, the Prime Minister is wrong.
What I do want to recall today is the member for Saint-Maurice who fought and spoke with passion for his province as part of his country, the minister who, in those early days at least, was the most approachable in cabinet, and most of all, the political competitor who rarely quits and is shrewd and tough and dangerous in the corners.
The Liberal Party has no idea what it is losing.
The Prime Minister has been here longer than the eternal flame, but he is still a relative newcomer in a Parliament that is sitting now in its third century.
This chamber has seen the patricians and the trailblazers, the steady and the eccentric, and in the likes of MacDonald and Laurier, and Diefenbaker and Tommy Douglas and Trudeau, the occasional sparks of brilliance.
But the real promise of our democracy, in this land where wealth and privilege are not supposed to be decisive, the true accomplishment, is to be simultaneously the Prime Minister and le petit gars de Shawinigan.
My party and I congratulate the Prime Minister on his longevity and Aline for her forbearance.