Mr. Speaker, later this afternoon there will be a celebration of life, just across the street from here, remembering and celebrating the extraordinary litany of accomplishments of Maurice Strong.
Maurice was born in 1929 in the little town of Oak Lake, Manitoba, and grew up in the Prairies through the dirty thirties. I do not need to describe the hardships that his small and enduring family suffered at that time. He never got beyond high school, but a small scrap of paper came to him across the prairies, landed at his feet, and he read it. It was about the United Nations, and he decided, extraordinarily, that his path to be of service to the world would be to become a self-made millionaire and to put his talents to work for the world.
He was the UN secretary-general of two global conferences. He was the founder of CIDA and the United Nations environment program, and he set up the Earth Charter Commission.
We celebrate an extraordinary Canadian, a global citizen. May he rest in peace.