Mr. Speaker, it is with great sadness that I learned of the death of my good friend George Hees.
He was a man with whom I had the honour to serve in Parliament for 10 years. He represented Toronto Broadview which is the first constituency in which I lived when I came to this country and was very active in local politics in the east end of Toronto.
He had a long and distinguished career. He had great affection for Parliament as an institution. He was in the best sense of the word a House of Commons man. He was first elected in 1950 and saw some very interesting times in Canadian history, as has been pointed out by the hon. member for Sherbrooke.
Throughout all of the political wars, George Hees was unflappable. He was a man of great humour, one who always had a spark in his eyes and always had a very benign quip at any situation.
In fact I remember the regular sparring that went on between George Hees and Pierre Trudeau on the floor of the House of Commons. These became rituals to which everyone paid attention and the Speakers at the time, Speaker Jerome and Speaker Sauvé, never had to gavel down members because everyone hushed to see who would get the better of the argument. While I have tremendous respect for Pierre Trudeau, my former leader, I have to admit that George got the better of Pierre Trudeau many, many times because he was quick on his feet, he had a great sense of wit and a great sense of history and was able to duel verbally with the prime minister of the time.
As has been pointed out, he spent his career in three different fields. He was a parliamentarian, he was a soldier and he was a sportsman. The young George Hees was a great athletic specimen. He played in the Grey Cup and won with the Toronto Argonauts in 1938. We could certainly use George Hees today. We could have used him the last 20 or 30 years, given the problems we have had with our football team. George was there in the days when the Grey Cup was very much a passion within Canada and certainly within Toronto and contributed much to sports excellence, not only as a professional football player but in other fields.
As a soldier he was one who was prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice. He was wounded at the battle of the Schelde and he carried those wounds with him until his death.
He was a man who I think could be best remembered for his service as a minister of veterans affairs because he had great empathy with those people. He believed that the veterans from the first and second world wars were the greatest of Canadians of our generation because these were people who fought for democracy, fought for liberty but also had to fight for economic survival in the depression. These were people who knew that what hard times were but these were people who knew after the war that we had to build a new society. He felt that they understood the true meaning in the Canadian experience, the kind of just society that we had to fight to preserve and the just society that we had to build for the newer generation, like myself and others who are younger.
As I said, he was a man of great humour. He was a man who I understand at the opening of the Ottawa airport terminal in 1962, when he was minister, was waiting to speak and the Royal Canadian Air Force did a fly past and they flew pretty close to the terminal and all the windows broke. That did not put George Hees off. He just went along with his speech in the unflappable, dedicated way that we knew of him.
His wife, Mabel, was one who garnered great affection in Parliament. She was always with him. She was always supportive. Like George she was a genuinely nice person.
If those of us who serve in the House today could only have a small percentage of the qualities of George Hees, then I think that we could say that we were good parliamentarians.
On behalf of the Prime Minister and the government I wish to extend our sincere condolences to his daughters and to the rest of his family. We have truly witnessed the passing of a great parliamentarian, a great soldier and a great man.
