Mr. Speaker, I hope you will allow me to look directly at the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount.

I want to take a look back. Thirty-nine years ago, at the tender age of 14, I became fascinated by a graduate of the Royal Military College of Canada, a naval officer who was the first Quebecker, the first Canadian, to become an astronaut. I remember when the space shuttle Columbia was launched in 1981. I had drawn pictures of the shuttle in school. Three years later, a Quebecker became an astronaut.

In 1984, the space shuttle Challenger undertook its STS-41-G mission. Then, in 1996, the space shuttle Endeavour completed mission STS-77 and, in 2000, mission STS-97 was launched, again on the space shuttle Endeavour. That flight took the MP for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount to the International Space Station.

For me, his military career—he is a former member of the military, like me—and his career as an astronaut were marked by those moments. They shaped the way I will forever see the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, who, as the Prime Minister mentioned, mesmerized a generation of young people back in our day. I had a role model, a vision and a belief that we Canadians could also become astronauts some day. Let us not forget that, back then, there were only Americans and Russians. We never thought we could do that too, but yes. Someone here today proved it to us.

Let us talk about politics. Obviously, the shuttle landed on the dark side of the moon at some point. In 2008, our astronaut become a Liberal MP. We can forgive him for that because, for the past 15 years, I must admit that this man has been a great Canadian.

He has always been very respectful, as we saw in his speech. The opposition never had anything negative to say about the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount.

He is a gentleman and an excellent politician but, personally, I will always remember him as a great Canadian who made history.

Pierre Paul-Hus

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