Mr. Speaker, giving a farewell speech in Parliament feels a little like delivering a eulogy at one's own funeral, so if I leave members with anything, let it be my personal gratitude for the opportunity to serve and to make a difference, and the unending importance of doing politics differently.
Politics is like pushing a boulder up a hill. All of us feel that at times, I think. It is rewarding and frustrating. It is meaningful progress in one moment and unfinished work at the same time. There are three things that I think matter as we are pushing that boulder uphill. Sometimes it rolls back down on us, obviously, and sometimes we get it to the top or think we have gotten it to the top. We need ambition, and I do not mean ambition in personal title; I mean ambition in ideas. We also need a team. No one accomplishes anything alone, and I would not have accomplished anything over the years without my team.
There is a quote I am reminded of. It says that the reasonable man adapts himself to the world, and the unreasonable man adapts the world to himself, and “Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” I think that in politics, one needs almost unreasonable persistence at times. It does sometimes pay off. I have been lucky to be a part of efforts to deliver progress at times.
There has been stronger climate action and accountability, for my kids and hopefully for our economy, and action to reduce poverty. There have been, with the Canada child benefit, hundreds of kids lifted out of poverty. The guaranteed income supplement is incredibly important for seniors. The Canada workers benefit, formerly the working income tax benefit, has increased in a significant way, and tens of thousands of workers have been lifted out of poverty. I am lucky to have been part of that advocacy. There is also a new disability benefit that needs to be improved and strengthened, of course.
When I look back over 10 years, this is part of the work we have been able to do together. If we have the courage to reform old age security, we could actually end seniors' poverty without spending a single dollar. I hope future Parliaments get that done.
There has been action to defend competition and protect consumers. Of the many things I have been proud of, one is that CEOs of oligopolies do not like to come to committee when I am there, whether they are CEOs from Rogers, Bell, Stellantis, Facebook, Apple, Google or grocery oligopolies.
There is a story here, because it is incredibly important to work together, where we can, across party lines at committee. I am turning 42 years old next week, but on my birthday a number of years ago, I was so incredibly furious because grocery store CEOs had all been communicating with one another to cut pandemic hero pay at the same time for low-income workers. I tapped out a motion on my phone. We brought the industry committee together, brought the grocery store CEOs to that committee and worked across party lines to deliver recommendations that the government acted on to make sure we criminalized wage-fixing so that what took place cannot take place again.
We have built more housing. I have been part of those efforts and part of advocating. We have gotten to a place where, across party lines, we all understand the need to end restrictive zoning and to get out of the way so the private market can deliver. I think more work still needs to be done to deliver non-market housing and to really and truly treat housing as a home first.
There has been action to protect animals: to end the captivity of whales and dolphins; to ban shark finning and testing on animals, especially cosmetic testing; and to strengthen the Criminal Code against animal abuse. If someone had told me before I was elected that I would be at a press conference beside Jane Goodall and Murray Sinclair, advocating for treating animals humanely, I would not have believed them.
We are treating addiction as a health issue and Canadians as responsible adults. For example, we have legalized cannabis. No, the sky did not fall, and now I am no longer a criminal. Overwhelmingly, we still need to follow through on following the evidence to save lives and truly treat substance use as the health issue that it is, the same way we treat eating disorders, gambling addictions or alcohol addictions.
I have been there for my community. All of us who have served through and since the pandemic have had the frustration and the exhaustion, but also the good fortune, to be there for our communities, delivering for thousands of people and making sure that they are able to access benefits and supports in the most critical time and moments of their life.
I have also been there for my community in probably its most difficult time over 10 years: I was there with the Danforth families, including the Fallon family in the wake of the Danforth shooting. Then I was part of efforts supporting those same families and advocating for sensible gun control.
I can point to my standing up for constituents. I consider myself a pretty good advocate, but an expert in nothing. Constituents who are experts in something or have lived experience have come to me with ideas. I can point to a range of examples, but I would hold up childhood cancer survivor Helena Kirk. I worked hand in hand with her and other advocates, and we were able to deliver tens of millions of dollars for pediatric cancer research and support.
We have been defending human rights and civil liberties, and dying with dignity, of course. Being elected, we were dealing with that issue for the very first time. One of the first moments when I disagreed with the government was to say that I did not think this law was constitutional and that we should fix it. On the Emergencies Act, there was calling out its invocation in an overbroad manner. There was fixing overbroad anti-terrorism legislation from a past Conservative government, and defending international human rights in, hopefully, a consistent way and with a sense of conscience for Rohingya refugees, Uyghurs, Hong Kong democracy activists, Palestinians and others.
To make politics about ideas, in the pandemic, we transitioned from hosting regular town halls to hosting a podcast. I have been lucky to have many colleagues in this place join me for conversations across the aisle to really make politics about ideas. When I think back, it was a promise I made when I was running in the nomination in 2013 and 2014.
I leave with, yes, a sense of accomplishment in some ways but also a sense of unfinished business. I do hope that future Parliaments will take wealth inequality and generational fairness more seriously. I hope they take action to ensure that, in a wealthy country like ours, people will not live in poverty, and all people will live with a core sense of dignity.
I hope there is transformational action to deliver competition. We are a country of oligopolies, but we should not be. I hope that we do see a wartime effort to build housing, transit and clean energy infrastructure, and that we take international peace assistance and co-operation more seriously. We could use more Pearson in this moment.
We all know that this is a job that comes with little job description. It is what we put into it. It is what we make it. I have had some roles, not an unending number, over the years. On the anti-poverty caucus, I had the co-chair role alongside Senator Pate where we advocated for basic income supports and strengthening the social safety net. There was the animal welfare caucus, which I helped found with other Liberal colleagues. I was the 416 caucus chair, and we helped deliver transit and housing for our city. I was chair of the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the team on the Canadian side.
I was also minister of housing, where I was lucky to deliver, for colleagues on all sides of the aisle, housing and building housing faster. It was one of the busiest times of my life, and my wife can attest to this. It was four months, although I will say that I did serve under two prime ministers.
The role I have lived the most, the one I have worked hardest to make a reality, is simply to be a principled voice in Parliament, one who takes ideas seriously, is willing to work across the aisle, acts with integrity, and more than anything, is honest, which is the most important value in this place.
I wrote this a while back, and I believe it to be true. I think we can all agree that no political party represents our views perfectly. We find the party that best represents our views and values, and we engage, debate, and organize to bring our party and country closer to those goals. We push, and in my case, I have seen my role as being to push the government to be the best version of itself. Yes, we disagreed at times but made that disagreement about ideas, and more often than not, with the benefit of time and persistence, there was change.
I will comment on the importance of independence. I was just telling my wife this. In the leadership race in 2023 for the Ontario Liberal leadership, I was in Norfolk County at an event. A woman rolled up in front of the café that I was about to go into for the event. She had all the “F Trudeau” stickers one can imagine. Her pickup truck was decked out. I went in to the event and saw that she had a thick binder of articles about me. I was not really sure how it would end.
I gave my speech, including the ideas I cared about but also the approach to politics I cared about. Afterwards, as I was working table to table, I came to her table. She quickly shut the binder and said, “You know what? I really appreciate what you said about independence. We need more of that in politics.” It strikes me that, when we take a step back, not only do we agree on more than we disagree on, but overwhelmingly across the aisle, we do care about the same approach to politics when we step outside of this place.
When I was first running in the nomination, a 29-year-old who had no idea what I was doing, a friend of mine from law school gave me a book entitled Tragedy in the Commons. I do not know if members have read it, but it is a series of exit interviews from former parliamentarians. They all basically say the same thing. It is a series of laments. They said things such as that when they came to Ottawa, they wanted to make the biggest difference they could on behalf of their community, but when they arrived, they read the canned talking points they were given to read, delivered the prewritten speeches given to them by staffers to deliver and voted how they were told to vote. They did not make the difference they had set out to make.
When I was elected, I was determined to not give an exit interview like that. In the back of my mind, I always kept this quote from Kurt Vonnegut: “We are what we pretend to be, so we should be careful about what we pretend to be.” I actually happen to think it is doubly true in politics. This is my last speech, but when I go back to my first speech, and to judge at the end, one might want to go back to the start, I said at the time that I would stress the importance of independence in the House, the importance of thoughtfulness and the importance of reasonable disagreement.
If I leave members with anything, it is this message: We should all act how we want this place to be. We need more ideas, more independent thinking and more honesty. Honesty is central to trust, and trust is at the heart of our representative democracy. Amidst the centralization, the pressure and the whips, we should act how we want the House to be.
Yes, I can hear the common reply to this: “But isn't politics a team sport?” First, I would say that we are first and foremost trustees in the public interest, even if it means, yes, the occasional visit to the whip's office. We all win elections as a team, but we should remember why we win elections. We win elections to serve ideas. We do not come up with ideas to serve elections.
The second thing to say is that we are also voices for our home communities, and those home communities are our team too. When I go back to my local grocery store and I see a friend from high school, they are my team. When I go back home and I see the volunteer who knocked doors with me in the snow in 2015, they are my team too.
I just want to say, yes, I have been a very proud member of the Liberal caucus since 2015. I have been more proud to be the representative for Beaches—East York. I want to thank Beaches—East York and everyone back home. I want to thank supporters for everything. I mostly just want to thank Amy and my family, mostly for putting up with me but also for standing beside me.
