Mr. Speaker, first, I want to thank the voters of Avalon for giving me this opportunity to represent them. They have given me their overwhelming support and for that I will be forever grateful.
I also want to thank my workers and my family who helped my campaign. In particular, I want to thank my wife, Susan, who is my dedicated soulmate, my friend and my CFO in my campaign. She kept everyone on their toes.
I want to also to thank my mom, Erma, and my family and friends for helping me achieve this goal. Without their hard work and dedication, this would not be possible.
As I went bay to bay, shore to shore and door to door during this campaign, I met many friends, old and new. I renewed acquaintances. I made some really good new friends for the first time. Those friends were former Conservatives who came over to work on my campaign.
This is a very humbling experience speaking in this chamber today. I am pleased to be sharing my time with the member for Don Valley West today.
We are all here for the same reason, to make our communities, our province and our country a little better place to live.
The people of Avalon sent a message in this election, and that message was on the Atlantic accord. The people were upset that a promise made to our province had been broken. That message was simple.
On that important issue, the member for Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley did exactly the same thing. He stood up for the people whom he represented and they recognized that.
Now we must put that behind us and we must move on in a new spirit of co-operation with the provinces and municipalities. We must work together. The government mentioned this in the throne speech, and I will quote from it. It states:
Our Government will also take steps to strengthen the Canadian confederation. It will respect the jurisdiction of the provinces and territories and will enshrine its principles of federalism in a Charter of Open Federalism.
Hopefully the federalism that the government has proposed is to work with the provinces and not be confrontational.