I thank my dear colleague from Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount. All of us Canadians have had in our minds this extraordinary human being as a Canadian hero. I have had the great honour, which I cannot believe, really, to become his friend. I was elected in 2011, and the hon. member was the House leader for what was then the third party in this place. He always showed me such kindness and generosity.
I was the only member of the Green Party at the time. Of course, our caucus has expanded madly since then. It has doubled. I asked for his help time and time again, and he never held back. I have to say that it has been an amazing experience to be friends. The hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby has made the point really clearly that everybody here loves this particular member of Parliament. It is a shock to know that he will not be sitting there when we come back after the next few times in our ridings. His departure is so sudden and so unexpected.
He will be greatly missed. He will be missed by every member who had the honour of working with him.
We say colloquially in English, “It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this out”, but this is the only person in this place who is a rocket scientist, and he has figured many things out. I hope we will all live up to his parting words. The Prime Minister mentioned his “last act”, which put me in mind of another phrase. This member is a class act. He never showed disrespect to anyone in this place. He was never anything less than honourable, thorough in his work and fully dedicated to Quebec, to Canada and to this planet. In that, I want to say how very grateful I am for all his kindness and his willingness to help the occasional effort of this member and to try to put things right in this place for democracy, for Canada and for the planet. There really are no words to say how much I will miss this member. I am thankful for the chance to add my words.