Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am pleased today to stand and congratulate an exemplary Northerner whose good works have now been recognized nationally. Bishop John Sperry has received our nation's highest honour, the Order of Canada. Bishop Sperry is one of my constituents.
Mr. Speaker, the Order of Canada recognizes people who have made a difference to our country, and it can most certainly be said that Bishop Sperry did that. He came from England in 1950 to serve in the Anglican Mission in what was then called Coppermine, although no one who knows this Nunavut community now would recognize it as it was then. Most of the people of the region then lived on the land for most of the year and John Sperry traveled to where they were in order to live and learn with them. He did this by travelling the only way he could, by dog team in the winter and boat in the summertime.
A year after Sperry came to Coppermine his fiancée, Elizabeth McLaren, left England to go to Aklavik to work as a nurse. They married in 1952 in Kugluktuk and raised their children, Angela and John, there. Later they served in Fort Smith, Yellowknife and Iqaluit. John Sperry became Bishop of the Arctic in 1974 and retired in 1990.
Bishop Sperry did much more than one would expect from a person in such a position, Mr. Speaker. As well as ministering to his parishioners, John Sperry also learned the Inuinnaqtun language and then translated the Anglican Prayer Book and Hymnary, and the New Testament Gospels and Acts into this language. He served with many boards and organizations, including the Canadian Bible Society, the Boy Scouts of Canada, the Canadian Rangers and the Historical Advisory Council of the NWT.
Since his retirement in 1990, he has also written a wonderful book about his life in the North and the people he has worked with, which is called Igloo Dwellers Were My Church. He continues to be active in several ways, including being a chaplain in the Canadian Armed Forces and at Stanton Regional Hospital. Mr. Speaker, I can think of no person more deserving to receive the Order of Canada than Bishop John Sperry, and I ask the House to join me in offering our most sincere congratulations to him on this occasion. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
-- Applause