Mr. Speaker, today we are paying tribute to John Napier Turner, who made major contributions to politics in Canada.
With the passing of John Turner we mourn a prime minister of Canada and a man who made incredible contributions to public life as a minister of finance, a minister of justice, and briefly as a prime minister and as the leader of the opposition in his decades of public life.
As the House is well aware, John Turner was larger than life outside of politics as well. He was a Rhodes scholar, a talented athlete and a skilled lawyer.
Ed Broadbent, a former leader of the NDP, who served with him in Parliament, said of him that of all the party leaders he had known, John Turner had the deepest respect for Parliament and for its democratic rules and procedures.
In the end, though, he never did take a seat in Parliament as a prime minister, 11 seats down from your seat, Mr. Speaker.
We can talk about his contributions. We can certainly talk about his background. However, I would like to speak about his being an inspiration to so many Canadians. I know this because of my own family history. My father, who is now 98 and still married to my mother, who is 97—we have good genes in New Westminster—was a long-time school administrator and teacher, and someone who won a high school basketball championship in British Columbia and was a school board trustee in New Westminster—Coquitlam—Burnaby. He had never run for higher office, but when John Turner became the leader of the Liberal Party, he was inspired and sought and won the Liberal nomination. He ran for the Liberals in that riding, 20 years before I ran for the NDP. Though that election did not turn out as either my father or John Turner had planned, the reality is that John Turner inspired hundreds of candidates across the country and millions of Canadians in the elections of 1984 and 1988. If members were to visit my parents' home in New Westminster, B.C., they would see many pictures of John Turner with my father.
That inspiration John Turner developed and provoked in so many Canadians is something that lives today. His deep respect for democracy was something I think all Canadians admire. The reality is that our democracy is as good and as strong as the calibre of the representatives Canadians choose for themselves.
John Turner was an exemplary public servant and will be greatly missed.
The NDP caucus and our leader offer our sincere condolences to the family and friends of John Napier Turner.