Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay homage to Dr. Roger Bider, who passed away this past April. Dr. Bider was a visionary who left a profound and lasting impact on our appreciation of the natural world around us.
For more than three decades, Dr. Bider taught wildlife biology at McGill University. In 1981, he founded the St. Lawrence Valley Natural History Society to promote research on, and conservation of, amphibians, reptiles, birds and other animals native to the St. Lawrence region. In 1988, as the public education component of its mission, the society created the Ecomuseum Zoo. Few are the children from the Montreal region who have not visited the Ecomuseum on a school field trip.
Dr. Bider's daughter, Jeanette, has best captured the essence of the man:
He would take us all camping and fishing all the time. He had such an incredible passion for nature and wildlife and was so happy to share it with us.
I offer our deepest condolences to Dr. Bider's wife, Marjorie, his children, Tim, Steve, Donna, Keith, Jeanette and Marc, as well as his many grandchildren.