Madam Speaker, I want to begin by paying my respects to the victims of the recent horrible tragedy in Saskatchewan and to their families.
I would also like to acknowledge that Canada's Parliament is located on the unceded traditional territory of the Anishinabe Algonquin people.
We are here today to pay our respects to and commemorate the life of Queen Elizabeth II. In a world that changes and evolves at such a rapid pace, the Queen represented stability, service and a quiet grace. She embodied duty and commitment to one's country.
I would like to offer my condolences to the royal family and King Charles III. They have lost not only a Queen but a mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. We know they are grieving that loss, and our hearts go out to all of them.
Canadians have been expressing their sorrow and sharing their admiration for the Queen since they learned of her death. Many people recall the time she visited their community or the time they shook her hand. Not all Canadians have had the same experience with the Crown, however. Some, in particular indigenous peoples, have much more mixed feelings.
Many felt a personal connection to the Queen, as she was a kind, thoughtful and compassionate individual. However, the idea of a sovereign of Canada is a complex one for indigenous peoples, who had lived on this land long before Europeans arrived.
The relationship between the Crown, Inuit, first nations and Métis is complex, continually evolving and personal, so I want to take a moment to acknowledge that some people’s reactions will be different, and that is entirely okay. That is what Canada is all about: being able to have different opinions, speaking about them in a respectful way and speaking about them in a thoughtful way.
For many indigenous peoples, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II had a special and personal role in Crown and indigenous relationships. Today we are here to recognize her extraordinary lifetime of service, and I will speak about Her Majesty’s affinity for northern Canada and, of course, her visits to Winnipeg and other areas of Manitoba.
The Queen has long shown love and respect for Canada. Queen Elizabeth II travelled on 23 royal tours of Canada and made a huge impact wherever she went, drawing crowds and touching hearts.
Over the years, she made four trips to the beautiful northern and Arctic parts of our country, the first being to Yukon in 1959. That was quite a trip, indeed. It was 2,600 kilometres of travel over 45 days. During that time, she visited 90 towns and hamlets.
During that first trip, a famous Inuit carver, Osuitok Ipeelee, carved a beautiful stone image of the Queen. He had based the carving on a photograph from her coronation in 1952. However, in the photograph, her shoes were covered by her gown, so Mr. Ipeelee carved the Queen in her bare feet and presented it to Prince Philip.
The Queen once again visited the Arctic in 1970, which included a stop all the way in Resolute in the High Arctic, as well as visits to Yellowknife and Iqaluit. For the duration of the trip, she had the future king, King Charles, alongside her.
She visited Yellowknife again in 1994, where she dedicated the new Northwest Territories legislative assembly building. She then made her way to Nunavut, drawing crowds in Rankin Inlet, and attended celebrations to mark the upcoming creation of the territory, where she watched performances by Inuit and Dene artists.
During her visit to Iqaluit in 2002, she was given a bouquet of Arctic flowers with Arctic cotton. It being her third time in Nunavut, she made the effort to thank people in Inuktitut and tried her best to give the right pronunciation, which many people appreciated.
Much like the people in the north, Manitobans have good memories of Queen Elizabeth II and her visits to our wonderful province and to my hometown of Winnipeg. The Queen visited Manitoba six times. In 1970 she, along with Prince Philip and their two children, the future King Charles III and Princess Anne, visited 16 towns in Manitoba in celebration of our province's 100th anniversary.
We will never forget that the Queen travelled to Saint‑Pierre‑Jolys in 1970 to speak to Franco-Manitobans. The Queen and Prince Philip returned to Manitoba in 2002 to celebrate the Queen's Golden Jubilee and to unveil the Golden Boy statue at the Manitoba legislature.
During the Queen's final visit to Manitoba, in 2010, she unveiled a cornerstone at the site of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights following her arrival with Prince Philip as the first official passengers at Winnipeg's new James Armstrong Richardson International Airport. That stone had been brought from the fields near Windsor Castle where the Magna Carta was signed. During that visit, she also crossed the magnificent Esplanade Riel to get to the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.
The Queen passed on her virtues of service and responsibility to other members of her family and passed on her affinity for northern Canada, which is obvious, to King Charles. Our new King has been a strong advocate and an early voice in the effort to educate the public about the dangers and effects of climate change. His work on climate change has a special resonance in the north, as the region is disproportionately affected by changes to its climate.
During his visits to Canada, King Charles III has often spoken about climate change. In 2009, he spoke in Newfoundland saying that climate change was a “threat...to all humanity”.
In 2017, in Nunavut, he pointed out that global warming was causing rapid and harmful changes to the Arctic way of life that has sustained the Inuit for so long.
The King has also shown an interest in Inuktitut and Inuit culture. In 2016, he invited a group of Inuit to Wales to study ways to standardize the writing of Inuktitut.
I like to think that the King's special interest in the north and his commitment to causes such as climate change are, at least in part, the product of his travels with the Queen during his youth.
We can all learn from the Queen's example, from her commitment to the common good, her devotion and her sense of responsibility.
Through political and social changes, through evolution in communications and technologies and through peace and conflict, Her Majesty the Queen served as a symbol of tradition and stability. She had a special love for Canada and she was loved in return. Each time she visited, she drew enormous crowds from coast to coast to coast.
In a rapidly changing world, one thing is for certain: There will never be another quite like Queen Elizabeth II.