2014-04-11

Hon. Jim Flaherty[Interjection]
The Deputy Speaker: To honour the memory of our late colleague, I understand there have been discussions among representatives of all parties in the House to have some members make statements to pay tribute to him.
Hon. K. Kellie Leitch (Minister of Labour and Minister of Status of Women, CPC): Mr. Speaker, I ask everyone to pause and look at their dictionary this morning. Under “Irish” they will see a leprechaun with a twinkle in his eyes and fierce determination behind them—my good friend.
It is with sadness that I stand in this place of honour today to pay tribute to a great national leader, a colleague, a mentor, my champion, and a very close friend, the Hon. James Michael Flaherty.
As Thomas D’Arcy McGee wrote:
  Am I remember’d in Erin— I charge you, speak me true— Has my name a sound, a meaning In the scenes my boyhood knew?  
Jim Flaherty's name has a meaning for all Canadians—a meaning of respect, of passion for country, and of empathy for others.
The deep sense of shock and loss we all felt at Jim's passing yesterday tells us how much a part of all of our lives he had become.
 Whatever our politics or local interests, Jim Flaherty was so clearly working hard every day for what he saw as our country's economic interests.
 As one of the country's longest-serving finance ministers and the longest-serving Conservative finance minister, as he used to remind me regularly, Jim truly made a difference in the lives of Canadians, by lowering taxes, introducing initiatives such as the children's fitness tax credit, and by creating the tax-free savings account and the registered disabilities savings plan.
Jim’s acute intellect, his immense compassion for the disadvantaged and the disabled, his global reach on international monetary and regulatory challenges were all part of his deep humanity and decency. He gave his all to serve a country he loved.
As he said just three weeks ago when he departed as the minister of finance, “We live in the greatest country in the world, and I want Canadians to know that it has been my honour and my privilege to serve them.”
Despite his unwavering commitment to public service, Jim never lost sight of what was truly important. He loved his family, he loved his hometown of Whitby, and he loved to kick back with a tall glass of Guinness as often as he could.
Jim never forgot the humble working class roots that were established at the dinner table with his family in Lachine, Quebec. In fact, while attending Princeton, and later earning a law degree, Jim bussed tables in cafeterias and drove a cab.
He believed in hard work, and I think he mentioned that often, and making a positive difference in the lives of Canadians. It was with this “can do” attitude that he became a mentor and champion for me personally, and for many of his colleagues, both in this place and abroad.
For me, I can speak to his being my champion on two specific occasions. I was at a conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico, of all places, in 2006. Jim was a newly minted finance minister. He called me and asked me if I would chair a panel on the children's fitness tax credit.
He said to me that they needed some health expertise and that it did not exist at Finance Canada. He wanted someone from the health care profession.
The opportunity he granted me in doing that, a young Canadian who was but 35 years of age, was that I had my first experience of the development of excellent public policy. I could take my professional background and apply it to public policy, and millions of Canadians became the beneficiary.
I have been very privileged as an orthopedic surgeon. I meet hundreds of patients in clinic, children and parents, but public policy, as we all know in this place, impacts all Canadians in a meaningful way and Jim understood that.
Jim taught me that. It created a passion for me at one point in time so that I would then move forward. Yet again, in 2010, I was standing in clinic, and the short Irishman called me and said “I hear you're running for office.” I said, “I am not running for office.” He said, “But I hear you are running for office” in the kind of tone of “I have decided you are running for office”. I said to him, “I don't recognize an election going on right now. Maybe we should have a conversation about this.”
He explained to me the circumstances in my home riding and encouraged me to run in the nomination. He was persistent. It was not something I was wont to do. In fact, he called probably every day, if not every second day, for five months. If you know his fierce determination, as I do, and I think many people in this place do, you finally just say yes because it is easier than taking the calls.
He often got his way that way, persistence being one of his great attributes. For that, I had the opportunity to be involved in a nomination, and now to stand in this place.
He reached out across Canada, across party lines, across business and labour divides, to seek consensus and advance fairness, something I hope to emulate during my time in public service. I know no one who expresses that more than Jim Flaherty.
When the shocking and crushing news reached the chamber yesterday, I was delighted to hear that the long knives that typify question period in a competitive parliamentary system were set aside for a moment of common humanity, consolation, and people reaching out to each other beyond partisan divisions. The Jim Flaherty I knew, the Jim Flaherty we all know, would have approved of that.
For those who do not know, back in the late sixties, Jim did in fact canvass for Pierre Elliott Trudeau. He always used to say that his sister made him do it because he was the baby brother.
It was also a sad day when Jim recently retired as minister of finance, not only because we were losing the greatest finance minister that this country has ever seen, but because his new seat assignment in the House of Commons was directly behind me. Time and time again over the last three weeks, he teased me relentlessly, in fact, vowed to make rabbit ears behind my head while I was speaking. Unfortunately, he never made it here.
Jim will be so very missed, and not forgotten. He will be remembered for his big Irish smile, the twinkle in his eye, his wicked sense of humour, his trademark ties, and, most importantly, his multiple public policy accomplishments over his nearly 20 years of public service.
His legacy is immense. I am confident that everyone in the chamber, and every Canadian, can point to something where Jim Flaherty touched their lives. His service was overwhelming. His friendship, to those of us who benefited from its breadth, warmth, depth, and humour, was the ultimate definition of loyalty.
He loved his country and served it with a heart as big as the country itself. The gap he has left will not soon be filled.
My friend, 
  May the road rise up to meet you, May the wind be always at your back. May the sunshine warm upon your face; the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of His hand.  
To my dear friend Jim, I loved you immensely my fierce friend, and I will miss you forever.
All hon. members:  Hear, hear!
Mr. Peter Julian (Burnaby—New Westminster, NDP): Mr. Speaker, Jim Flaherty was genuine, decent, and kind.
It is with great sadness that the NDP family learned of the death of Jim Flaherty. I would like to join our leader and all New Democrats in offering our deepest condolences to his wife, Christine Elliott, and his three sons, John, Galen and Quinn—the family that gave him so much support—as well as to his other family members and many friends.
We recognize his contribution and his dedication. Everyone will agree that, in his 20 years of political life, he fulfilled his responsibilities with courage and determination. We will always remember him as a devoted and intelligent man who contributed to the country's well-being. Most of all, I will remember his joie de vivre and his Irish sense of humour. 
One of my favourite stories about Jim is his talking about his family background and the city gates of Galway, where it is inscribed in Gaelic: From the ferocious O'Flahertys, Lord deliver us. Jim would deadpan, “You know, that's not bad training for a finance minister”.
However, as MP, as MPP, and as minister of finance, Jim Flaherty was a man who repeatedly demonstrated his love for public service. He served his constituents, and all Canadians, with dedication, with conviction, and with hard work.
In a speech he gave to students at the University of Western Ontario, in 2011, Jim laid out his own thoughts on the importance of public service, and this he demonstrated every day of his public service career. He said:
 Public service reminds us all there exists a genuine concept of the public good in the broad public interest. While we value individual liberty and protect it, as Canadians we also maintain a strong tradition of the public good, that is, what is good for society as a whole...” 
He reflected, then, on his experience listening to Robert Kennedy 40 years earlier. He said:
 Today, about 40 years after I heard Kennedy speak, my message is the same: Canada needs you—your skills, talents, idealism, energy and enthusiasm—now, more than ever. 
Jim's sudden death is also a dramatic reminder that, although we were all elected for partisan reasons, we are all human beings and we have much more in common than the sum of our differences. Like Jim, we are here because we want to serve Canadians and give our best. 
Jim Flaherty's friendly and engaging demeanour, even in the face of the health challenges we saw, showed his great strength of character.
He was always affable. He was always friendly in the members' gym, in the elevator, whenever you met him—the one exception being question period, where he was affable, often, but very strong and eloquent as a debater.
As one of the many finance critics he faced over the course of his career here, I can say we, all of us, had to be very well prepared when we came up against Jim Flaherty in the House of Commons.
All great people are profoundly motivated to make life better for others. With Jim Flaherty, among many other talents, that profound motivation led him to be a passionate advocate for people with disabilities.
His deep love of his son John and his keen understanding of the challenges and obstacles that Canadians with disabilities face every day and through the course of their lifetime led him to push for the creation of the registered disabilities savings plan.
This did not garner headlines, but it will benefit the lives of Canadians with disabilities for years and for decades to come.
With that understanding, with decency, and with common sense, Jim Flaherty made a difference in the lives of Canadians who are, far too often, marginalized, forgotten, and ignored.
A few years ago, Jim wrote a column in the newsletter for the Canadian Association of Community Living, about his son John, and the joy John gives the entire family. He wrote:
 [John] sees clearly what we often miss in the cacophony of our lives. A few years ago, we were underwater in a submersible at the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland looking out the window at the sun’s rays shimmering through the turquoise water on the colourful fish and plants, when John said simply and eloquently, “That’s what heaven looks like”. So now I know. 
Wrote Jim, “Now I know”.
After nearly a decade of devoted service to our nation in one of the toughest jobs that exists, he looked forward to spending much more time with his loving family.
Sadly, he was taken from them and taken from all of us at far too young an age.
We will miss Jim Flaherty.
Hon. Scott Brison (Kings—Hants, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, just a few weeks ago, on March 18, when Jim Flaherty retired from politics, we all expressed our best wishes to Jim, Christine, and family for their next promising chapter of life together.
It seems unfair that, so soon after, we now have to say goodbye to this great public servant, husband and father.
To Christine, Quinn, Galen, and John, while Jim's time with you has been cut tragically short, his legacy, one of his enduring gifts to you, is the example Jim set with his life of public service. 
Jim and I sparred in the House and at committee, but away from the spotlight we had a trusted and candid relationship. He used to call himself an old hockey player and he was disciplined enough to be in the MPs' gym just about every morning at 6:30 or before. Jim's locker was near mine in the men's changing area. We would often chat there, sometimes about policy and issues of the day, and we would enjoy a few laughs. Mind you, Jim's Irish sense of humour was tested by me from time to time. Later in the day if I met him when he was surrounded by caucus and cabinet colleagues, I would say, “Jim Flaherty's the first man I see naked every morning”.
Jim was even competitive when he congratulated me on the news of the impending birth of my twins. He winked at me and reminded me, “You know we have triplets”. Even then and to his credit, Jim's greatest pride was his family. Jim was a tough, resilient warrior. He ran in four provincial elections. He lost the first time in 1990, but came back to win in 1995, 1999, and 2003. 
He won three federal elections in his riding and he ran in two leadership races. All told, that is about 700 days of campaigning, not including all of the times he campaigned for others. Jim suffered losses, but his defeats neither stopped him nor defined him. He bounced back and went on to bigger and better things.
His life sets a high bar and serves as a lesson to all of us and to his boys that there are no permanent victories or permanent defeats, just permanent battles. Jim never gave up, and all those campaigns, all those battles, prepared him for what was ultimately his biggest battle: Canada's response to the global financial crisis. It was not easy. He faced immense ideological pressure to take a different approach. Ultimately, Jim knew what he had to do; he knew what Canada had to do, and he showed great international leadership in getting the job done.
I met with Jim on January 28 in his office to discuss the upcoming budget and I had not realized until that meeting just how much he was suffering from his illness. Even so, he battled on. He kept working and kept serving the public. Jim believed profoundly in public life. In his own words he probably put it best, “Public service is good for you. It will give your life a greater impact on others and your country”.
The following words by Teddy Roosevelt make me think of Jim.
 The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. 
On behalf of the leader of the Liberal Party and all of us, goodbye to an old hockey player and a happy warrior.
Thank you, Jim, for your commitment and for everything you did for Canada.
Thank you to Christine, Quinn, Galen, and John for sharing Jim with Canada.
Mr. Jean-François Fortin (Haute-Gaspésie—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, BQ): Mr. Speaker, it was with shock, sadness and compassion that my colleagues and I learned yesterday of the death of Jim Flaherty, who had been a member of the House of Commons since 2006 and the finance minister for the Conservative government until just recently. Jim also held senior ministerial positions within the Ontario provincial government, where his talents were recognized.
Jim Flaherty left his mark on Canadian politics. In his own way and in a manner consistent with his values, he did what he thought was right and just for Canadians and his party. We will remember him and the economic legacy he left as finance minister, which marked the beginning of the 21st century.
Like any good politician, he did some good and some not so good things, depending on your political point of view, but he was always respectful and honest in his approach. Jim Flaherty was a great man with many good qualities. He was a man with heart.
With his intelligent sense of humour, he was sometimes able to make even his strongest opponents smile. 
He was without a doubt a man who was respected by all of his peers in the House of Commons. He was an engaging man with bright eyes and a sharp mind who gave a lot to the community.
On behalf of my Bloc Québécois colleagues, I would like to express my sincere condolences to Jim's family, friends and relatives, as well as to all of his Conservative Party colleagues.
Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP): Mr. Speaker, it is a great honour for me to speak this morning and say a few words in tribute to our extraordinary colleague, Jim Flaherty.
I think many of us have only rarely experienced a moment such as yesterday, when all partisanship faded away and we absorbed the shocking news of the death of someone we knew and loved. It was so unexpected, and I know the word has been used recently, unfair. We all know that we are all mortal, and we cannot really judge the fairness of a moment. We just know that all of us felt in our hearts that Jim Flaherty deserved his retirement and deserved the rest he so richly deserved. 
As my colleague from Kings—Hants mentioned, only recently have we been sharing stories of how much he was suffering and how he persevered. What an extraordinary work ethic, to refuse to take time for his own rest when he was dealing with a condition that was painful, difficult, and exhausting for him. However, he did not put himself first; he put his country first.
One the moments I did not know about, and it was one of the sides of his personality, so it does not surprise me at all, I heard yesterday from the Green Party candidate for Whitby—Oshawa, Rebecca Harrison, who was completely broken up. She had shared with him, she said, the laughs after all-candidates meetings that he would stay and share. He would ask her out for a beer. Such kindness, such humanity. He was ultimately someone who loved other people so much that he put partisanship aside so that we could know what it was like to enjoy a joke with Jim, and he did enjoy his jokes.
Yesterday, when I went across the aisle to console the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, she said, “I was just going to send him this joke I found online. I thought he'd love it”. His sense of humour is what will stay with me, as will his compassion and his public service.
I will not trespass any longer on all of our shared grief. I want to extend my condolences to Christine, to his sons, John, Galen, and Quinn, to all of our colleagues in this place who worked with him in the Conservative Party, the Prime Minister, and everyone who is, at this moment, shattered, broken up, and understanding that we will not see Jim Flaherty again on this mortal plane.
Forgive me if I recognize that Jim Flaherty was a man of faith. For those who are of no faith, please forgive me if I reflect that we part company now and enter into the break to observe the most sacred portion of the Christian calendar, when we go through Palm Sunday, Holy Week, and Good Friday and ultimately recognize that Jesus Christ broke the bonds of death and we celebrate resurrection. I hope that those moments will give some comfort to Jim and his family, because Jim Flaherty was a man of deep faith, and those of us of faith know that he is in, as they say, a better place, the best place. 
Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. Amen.
The Deputy Speaker: I would now invite all members to stand and have a moment of silence in memory of Mr. Flaherty.
[A moment of silence observed] 
[Interjection]
The Deputy Speaker: Thank you.
As difficult as it is on a day like today, we do have a few minutes of business to conduct. I will recognize the member for Winnipeg North.
Business of the HouseMr. Kevin Lamoureux (Winnipeg North, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, it is a sad day indeed, and I will be very brief.
We adjourned the House quickly yesterday upon hearing the very tragic news of Mr. Flaherty's passing. While I understand that we will be adjourning today's sitting in a few moments, I would like to ask for the unanimous consent for the following motion, which has been negotiated among the parties. 
I move:
 That, in relation to the Opposition motion in the name of Mr. Simms (Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor) debated Thursday, April 10, 2014, the question be deemed put and that, pursuant to Order made that day, the recorded division be held on Monday, April 28, 2014, at the expiry of the time provided for Government Orders. 

[Interjection]
The Deputy Speaker: Does the hon. member have unanimous consent of the House to move this motion?
[Intervention]
Some hon. members:  Agreed.
The Deputy Speaker:  Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?
[Intervention]
Some hon. members:  Agreed.
The Deputy Speaker: (Motion agreed to)
The Deputy Speaker: I have the honour to inform the House that a communication has been received, which is as follows: 
 Rideau Hall 
 Ottawa 
 April 10, 2014 
 Mr. Speaker, 
 I have the honour to inform you that the Right Honourable David Johnston, Governor General of Canada, signified royal assent by written declaration to the bills listed in the Schedule to this letter on the 10th day of April, 2014, at 3:40 p.m. 
 Yours sincerely, 
 Patricia Jaton 
 Deputy Secretary 
The schedule indicates that the bills assented to on Thursday, April 10, 2014, are as follows: Bill C-9, An Act respecting the election and term of office of chiefs and councillors of certain First Nations and the composition of council of those First Nations—Chapter 5, 2014; Bill C-14, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the National Defence Act (mental disorder)—Chapter 6, 2014. 

Routine Proceedings
Hon. Peter Van Loan (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, CPC): Mr. Speaker, with respect to order paper Questions Nos. 309 and 310, responses to which are due today, I wish to table, in both official languages, documents containing the government's responses to those questions.
Mr. Speaker, as a mark of this chamber's honour for the memory of the late member for Whitby—Oshawa, a man who was a distinguished public servant for two decades and a beloved friend and colleague of us all, I move:
 That this House do now adjourn. 

The Deputy Speaker: Does the hon. government House leader have unanimous consent?
[Intervention]
Some hon. members:  Agreed.
The Deputy Speaker: (Motion agreed to)
 By unanimous consent, the House adjourns out of respect for the late Mr. Flaherty, MP for Whitby—Oshawa. 
This House stands adjourned until Monday, April 28, at 11:00 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 28(2).
(The House adjourned at 10:38 a.m.)