Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s not very often in this House we get so many MLAs say nice things about one person.
---Laughter
Mr. Speaker, I have also had the honour and the privilege of serving with Tony and working in this House in his position at Sergeant-at-Arms, and then when he became an MLA, and then a Speaker.
For me it was always interesting to talk to Tony because he’s actually a walking history book. I wanted to talk about issues about Highway No. 3 when we were in the Members’ Lounge and then he started talking about when he was building it and driving a Cat and pushing down trees when they were building the road. So he had a lot of information. He was interesting to listen to on every occasion.
He’s probably spoken more French in this House than anybody else in recent history, not always the best French, but...
---Laughter
We tried a lot of times to try to speak the Newfie French and I think my speaking was more peppered with ums and ahs than actual French words, but he always took the time to respond to me accordingly.
I think some of the things that I’ll treasure the most is being able to have Tony give advice and a lot of times just to listen to some of the issues. It’s not an easy place to work and to have a Speaker that’s willing to talk to you and listen to what you’re going
through. In return we have to listen to his corny jokes, but it was all in fun, and I want to wish him all the best. I want to wish him all the best of luck in his future endeavours. I’m sure there are many things he still has out there as goals and I also want to thank him for the time that he spent in this House and with us. Thank you.
---Applause