Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have had the good fortune of knowing Tony Whitford for many years from back in the ‘60s in Fort Smith. I have a number of stories but I was going to save most of them for tonight at the dinner.
I guess some of the most memorable moments with Tony was when he first got elected as Minister. He came and stole my secretary at that time. During the height of the anti-trapping campaign by the European Union, the Legislative Assembly assembled a team of MLAs to go to the European Union to counter this proposed boycott and I had the good fortune to travel with Tony Whitford, Silas Arngn’naaq and a couple of other MLAs. We got to go to a northern European Union country. The first country we landed in was Denmark. We got in in the afternoon and we were going to go and have dinner. We all started walking. Tony took off. He was way ahead of us and it looked like he was laboured in walking and having problems walking. We all said, what is the matter with Tony? What is wrong with him? We went up to him and he was in a courtyard and he had a picture in his hand and he was looking at the skyline and he said, “My brother was here at the end of the war in 1945 and he got his picture taken here. I just want to see if this is the same spot,” and he had the picture. We looked at it and we saw the skyline and he said, “Now I have to find a blonde lady to get my picture taken with her.”
---Laughter
Sure enough, this one lady walked by. We stopped her. He said, “Can I get my picture taken with you?” She looked at him and said, “Sure.” So he had a picture to match his brother’s.
I think that Tony Whitford is perfect as Commissioner. His whole career was built towards fulfilling that job. I am very pleased to recognize him. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
---Applause