Mr. Speaker, it is with great personal pride that I stand today to support the motion of my colleague and friend, the member for Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel. I hope I am not betraying his trust today by telling the House how emotional and passionate he is about this particular initiative. It stems from one principle that he raised with us quite recently, which is that he has done everything in his life for his three daughters. For anyone who has studied the background of this motion, it stems precisely from the personal physical and emotional trauma his daughter went through.
This is a bright and important motion, and I am glad it is garnering unanimous support in the House. It comes from a very personal source and it is of great importance to the member. It was something he did way before he got into politics, notably by pioneering an initiative called “cool taxi”, which gave tickets to people who were impaired, without any questions asked, in order for them to get home safely.
I want to talk about a good friend of mine, Peter Cullen. He is a former colleague of mine at the law firm I worked at for a number of years, Stikeman Elliott. This is not a partisan pitch. In fact, his brother is an NDP organizer, and he has reminded me several times that he tends to be Conservative. Members can applaud on that side of the House, but there are about three of those in the Montreal area, so it is not a big number. I did want to emphasize that this is not a partisan pitch by any stretch of the imagination.
When Peter Cullen found out I was getting into politics, he had read a local newspaper article that we have all been the subject of, which goes through our family history in a most embarrassing way. He came up to me in the lawyer's lounge and asked if my uncle was Graham Gales. Peter is a maritime lawyer. I did not do maritime law at all, so we had not really worked together or gone through our personal histories. I told him Graham was my uncle. He looked at me and under the stress of emotion gave me what I call the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant hug, which is as close as one can get to something a little firmer than a handshake, but it was deep in emotion. He said he did not know that, despite the years we had worked together. He told me that Graham had been his best friend, that he had walked to school with Graham every day, and still misses him. I spoke with Peter this morning to get permission to speak about him in the House. He told me he is still affected every day by the loss.
Graham died at 18, hit by an impaired driver, close to Hawkesbury. I never got to meet my uncle and Peter lost his best friend. This was something I did not know. I knew the loss had affected my mother. It was in 1972. She was pregnant with me, a few months along. It obviously affected her parents, my grandparents. They never recovered from it, nor does any parent, I believe, who loses a child. It also affected a swath of people around him, including my colleague and buddy Peter.
This is something that has touched every single person in the House, whether at this level of capacity or at full capacity. As members of Parliament we hear about trauma, but on a personal level, we have all been touched deeply by it in some measure.
The reason I am telling the House about Peter is that the repercussions of impaired driving have a devastating effect on society, not only on people who are close but on people we never would have imagined it would have had an impact on, and it marks them every day. When I talked to Peter this morning, as well as a couple of years ago, about this loss, he still is visibly under the emotional trauma of reliving the incident. Part of that was him asking me to help him find the grave where Graham is buried, because he went looking for it and never found it. I have helped him, and hopefully, he has found the grave and has been able to get some peace.
My colleague from Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel has gone through a similar personal trauma. His daughter, thank the Lord, survived and is now in law school. I have not checked her grades, nor should he share them with me, but I am sure she will be at the top of her class. She was highlighted by the Barreau du Québec at some point for her studies. She is a young Quebec leader and has a very bright career. However, she was the subject of an impaired driving crash and it took a significant period of time for her to recover from that.
The reason we support this as a government, why my colleagues across the way support it as members of the Queen's loyal opposition, and why I support it on a personal level is the fact that the motion makes sense. It makes sense for a number of reasons, both personal and professional.
We have talked at length about legalizing cannabis. I had a prepared speech and was prepared to tell the House about the initiatives and the millions of dollars that this government was prepared to invest to raise awareness of impaired driving as it related to cannabis. However, the reason today's motion is garnering so much support is because it makes sense. It only needs to achieve one single purpose to have success, and that is to change but one and to save but one single life. If it does that, my colleague to the left of me can be extremely proud of what he has achieved with this initiative. Moreover, I am going to get rid of this speech. I was waiting for my mother to call me and give me permission to actually talk about this, but I hope she forgives me.
This is deep and personal for everyone. As I mentioned earlier, as members of Parliament, we have all heard terrible stories. We should stay humble because of that. We have all been one step away from taking the wrong turn, being stupid, and jumping into a car in a condition less than respectable. If any kids are listening to this speech, there is one message I would like to convey to them. If they are under extreme peer pressure to get into a car with someone that they know is drunk, then they should take the damn keys away and throw them in the snow, or wherever. A friend may be lost for a week, or maybe two weeks, but that friend will not be lost for life.