Terry Beech

“Mr. Speaker, to my hon. colleague from North Vancouver—Capilano, it is bittersweet to see him leave this place. The only sweet part is knowing that he will be representing Canada so well as our ambassador to the European Union, a jurisdiction that has not forgotten climate change. Earlier today, I was meeting with a colleague from the German Greens who serves as a member of the European Parliament. She was describing to me what it was like to work in Brussels and Strasbourg, back and forth, and she thought it was a long trip. I explained what it was like to be a British Columbia member of Parliament in this place. She is from Hanover. The hon. member may run into her someday. My hon. colleague and friend from North Vancouver—Capilano and I have become friends. I do not think we started out that way, but it was one of my favourite moments in any committee meeting when our hon. colleague gave me his time at the beginning of the environment committee. It was a choice moment, and it does not happen very often, but he did not really need a briefing book either way. I will just say that. He is one of the ministers in this place who are not in need of someone telling them what the facts are or telling them what to say. It would be unnecessary. In reviewing all the years that he has served in this place, primarily under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as Minister of Fisheries, Minister of Environment and Climate Change and Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, anyone here will know that we hardly ever crossed paths: in other words, pretty constantly. There is the work that the hon. member did on fisheries, as my hon. friend from Vancouver Kingsway has pointed out, the work to ban single-use plastics to get them out of our oceans, the work, as has been mentioned, for wild salmon, the work on carbon pricing and the work to move to a post-carbon economy. These lessons and the hard fights that he had must not be lost, so I will say, from the bottom of my heart, “thank you”, and I will say that perhaps his child Max might say that when the member gets to Brussels, he should change Canada’s position to make ecocide a crime under the International Criminal Court provisions. That is just something to take away. No one asked me to say that. Additionally, I would say to the hon. member for North Vancouver—Capilano as he leaves here that we are always in the right to remember one of the greatest Canadian parliamentarians ever, Tommy Douglas. The fact that the hon. member was able to be brought into cabinet to represent Saskatchewan, while a Vancouver MP, is one of those things that we know will define him as a great Canadian to represent Canada to the EU. I ask him to remember other lines that I recall from William Blake’s Jerusalem, which I also love. It is not “my sword sleep in my hand” or about this green land, but remember how William Blake described industry: the “dark Satanic Mills”. To the hon. member, continue the good work. We look forward to seeing him at home in Canada, and in the meantime I hope to be able to come now and then to Brussels. I thank him so much for his service. There are not enough words to thank him.”