Mr. Speaker, it is also my pleasure to rise to pay tribute to the member for Hamilton East today in case this is her last appearance in the House.
I arrived here in 1993 and already the member for Hamilton East was an icon in Liberal circles at the time and certainly was a focus of attention.
I will tell a quick story, if I may. In those days there were no time limits on the responses that ministers gave in the House. While we were all kind of new, sitting down at that end of the House, I remember she got up and tore a long strip off all of us in the Reform Party and told us all what was wrong. At the end of it all, most of us were kind of shaken and upset. Herb Grubel, a member at the time, turned to us and said “You know, I like her, she's feisty”. It was a great moment, and it is true.
If I could summarize from my perspective the things that I remember about the member's career it would be feisty, fighter and passionate. Although sometimes we had disagreements on this side of the House with some of the policy initiatives, we never doubted her commitment to Canada or to her constituents of Hamilton East. That was never in doubt.
We thought we had the first example of a publicly driven recall campaign when the hon. member resigned her post and then had to run for re-election in a byelection in Hamilton East. We thought that was our moment but it ended up being another lesson for us to learn at that time, which was that one does not take on the member for Hamilton East at the drop of a hat and that one does not do it lightly.
I know we have not seen the end of her public involvement and her public commitment but we will miss her in this place. She added a certain dynamic that is not here in spades. We appreciate her commitment to Canada, especially her passionate defence of women's issues, ethnic minorities and Canadian culture.
I wish her well in whatever may come. I know her family will appreciate seeing her a little bit more but we will be the lesser for not having her in this place.