Madam Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to my friend Gord McIlroy, who passed away recently just short of his 91st birthday.
Gord enlisted in the RCAF at age 17, at the height of World War II, and was in active service between 1943 and 1945.
Gord and I spent many hours over drinks discussing every topic under the stars, but never his own wartime service. “Some guys just do not want to talk about what happened”, he would say.
Gord was born and raised in Winnipeg, but he made up for it by moving to Edmonton after the war, where he settled with his family and flew with 418 (City of Edmonton) Squadron. Always a troublemaker, Gord pranged a B-25 once while trying to fly between fence posts, fence posts that were just six feet off the ground, bear in mind.
Gord never stopped. At 65, he earned his bachelor's degree and, well into his 80s, his MBA. He always signed his emails, and Gord sent thousands and thousands of opinionated ones to the dismay of many recipients, as Gord, the bold, the sage, the seer, and that he was.
I thank Gord for his service to Canada. I will miss him.