Honourable senators, it is with profound gratitude that I rise today to pay tribute to Speaker George Furey. Your Honour, you have had a rich and varied career as a teacher, a lawyer and a parliamentarian, but as our Speaker, you guided us through two historic and great transformations: the COVID-19 pandemic and the modernization of the Senate.

The COVID-19 pandemic placed enormous strains on Canadians, on our institutions and on our economy. But under your leadership, the Senate adjusted its practices, and we made this institution work to deliver the important supports that Canadians needed during those difficult years.

But your legacy, Your Honour, what students of Westminster parliaments will remember you by, is the skill with which you helped us navigate the modernization of the Senate. I recall in your opening remarks upon taking the chair as Speaker in 2015, you highlighted the need for this chamber to reinvent itself and to fulfill our constitutional role as an independent institution of sober second thought. Your Honour, your leadership throughout the process of reform was exemplary, and its effects will reverberate long into the Senate’s future.

Colleagues, many of us have had the great opportunity to travel with the Speaker or to join him as he welcomed parliamentary and diplomatic delegations here in the Senate, so you have seen how elegantly the Speaker represented our institution and, indeed, our country. Many of us have also had the pleasure of spending time with the Speaker in more relaxed settings, enjoying a good meal, fine wine, good whisky — often both — and being regaled by stories of his political life. These are some of the memories I cherish most fondly.

We all know that a successful political career requires a supporting family, and George has been blessed with a loving wife in Karen and with four talented children. We are all grateful to them, to all of you, for sharing George with us.

Your Honour, you have presided over this chamber with dignity, with fairness, with integrity and with a steadfast respect for this institution and all who work in it for the benefit of Canadians.

Above all, you have remained true to who you are as a person: modest and without pretension, a loving husband, father and grandfather, a person anchored in your faith and devoted to your province and your country.

You have been a mentor to me and to many, many Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, including a very important member of my team.

Your Honour, in my tradition, we have a word for people like you, and it’s a word that comes with the highest, highest praise. George, you are a true mensch. Thank you for your friendship and your support. I am going to miss you greatly.

Honourable senators, I also rise to pay tribute to our colleague and friend the Honourable George Furey as we begin saying goodbye to Canada’s forty-fifth Speaker of the Senate.

Your Honour, as I reflected on your tenure in the Senate, I remembered many of your interventions when we both served on the Standing Senate Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration. That’s when our friendship began. We were faced with difficult times then — times that brought on increased transparency. Yet, things back then were simple. You were a good Liberal — if there is such a thing — and I a proud Conservative. But at the end of the day, we both knew that partisanship had a respectful role in this institution. Those were the good old days.

A lot has changed since then, as Prime Minister Trudeau sent the Senate into uncharted waters — waters that you as Speaker have had to navigate. You stepped up to the helm as a storm was brewing on the horizon. There were turbulent times, which called for you to make difficult rulings. Some we agreed with, and others we did not. But my respect and admiration for your efforts to be a fair and impartial Speaker prevailed. They never wavered.

Your Honour, thank you for the role you have played in ensuring this chamber runs smoothly. You have demonstrated incredible patience. I will always cherish your professionalism and allegiance to this institution.

Over the years, you took on the role of a devoted ambassador for Canada in your travels abroad. When meeting with various leaders of other countries, you always allowed and welcomed everyone present to take part in the discussions and meetings. You recognized the role of the opposition and you let everyone express their views.

Your Honour, I wish to close with this genuine thought: It has been a pleasure to know you over the years. I recognize that this sentence is sometimes used lightly, but the meaning is sincere. Both Betty and I hold great memories of our times spent with you and Karen. We have truly enjoyed your friendship.

As of later today, Your Honour, I will once again be calling you George. Happy retirement! I wish you and Karen the very best, and may you catch up on spending time with your loved ones, especially your grandchildren. I will take you up on that game of golf that you have promised me.

Thank you, Your Honour.

Your Honour, I know how incredibly humble you are and that I am prolonging your agony by rising to pay tribute to you.

In all seriousness though, you deserve all of the tributes that are being paid to you today because you have done such an excellent job as our Speaker, a role that is so very important to our institution.

I pay tribute to you today on behalf of the Independent Senators Group, only three members of which served with you before 2015. For the other 36 members of the group, you have been the only Speaker they have known in this chamber during a particularly complex and demanding time in the history of our institution.

Your Honour, your commitment to public service is an example to us all, and your leadership has been essential in guiding the Senate in its mission to represent all Canadians and to modernize the institution.

In your opening address to this chamber as Speaker, you started by stating:

Colleagues, our chamber is at a crossroads. We have an opportunity to work together to recreate how this chamber of the Parliament of Canada does its work for Canadians. Truly, we are entering uncharted waters in which we are invited by the government to reinvent ourselves in a less partisan way and fulfill our role, as envisioned under the Constitution, as an independent chamber of sober second thought.

Your Honour, you sailed us through these waters seamlessly, and your legacy as Speaker of the Canadian Senate will live on in our country’s history. You have worked tirelessly to modernize the institution and strengthen the confidence of Canadians in the Senate.

Your previous professional training has also served us well as members of this democratic institution. On the one hand, your legacy as a teacher has made you a great guide in helping new senators better understand the Senate as well as its rules and protocol. From time to time, you have even had to do the same for veteran senators. On the other hand, your legal training has made you a Speaker with a great sense of justice and fairness, and this sense has manifested itself in all your decisions and interventions within this chamber. You have handled this with great courage — the courage to take tough decisions, sometimes not to everyone’s liking.

Outside this chamber, you have acted as an eminent ambassador for our institution. Both within Canada and abroad, along with your wife, Karen, you have represented the Senate with great elegance and finesse, and I have had the pleasure of witnessing that on several occasions.

On a more personal note, I take this opportunity to wish Karen and you a happy retirement. For you and for your family, it will be a chance to finally enjoy each other’s presence more.

Your Honour, you leave behind an impressive legacy, and your contribution to Canadian democracy and public service will never be forgotten.

Thank you and congratulations on your outstanding public service!

Senator Furey, I can’t believe that the time for your retirement is here. Your distinguished career serving the people of Newfoundland and Labrador in Ottawa is coming to a close after almost 24 years.

It was a pleasure to serve alongside you in caucus for 15 of those years, until your appointment in 2015 as the first Speaker of the Senate from Newfoundland and Labrador. I will add that during the time that Geoff Regan served as Speaker of the House of Commons, it was the first time that the Speaker of the House of Commons and the Speaker of the Senate were both graduates of the law school at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia.

George, I have many fond memories of working with you here in Ottawa. One fun thing that stands out was the Senate choir. You and I, along with Senator Ringuette and former senators Bill Rompkey, Joan Fraser, Lorna Milne and Gerald Comeau — to name a few — would sing together in the Senate choir, not as Liberals or Conservatives, but in the spirit of friendship.

The late senator Tommy Banks would lead and accompany us on piano, and if we sang out of tune, Tommy would simply begin to play a little louder.

As others have said, George, you have kept a steady hand as we have navigated these uncharted waters of change in the Senate over the last eight years — from the ever-evolving dynamics of this place, to the move from Centre Block to our temporary new home here in the Senate of Canada Building and the upheaval of the pandemic with a shift to hybrid sittings.

I think the highest praise a Speaker can receive is to be regarded as being fair. Your Honour, you have ruled fairly but firmly with words of encouragement for us to find solutions.

George, I know how important family is to you. You will now be able to spend more time with Karen, your children and, particularly, your grandchildren.

I wouldn’t normally quote a family member. However, since Andrew is a politician, I will make an exception here. He said:

Dad was a great role model, and not only was he a great role model, he’s one of my best friends.

He went on to say:

. . . my top priority is always going to be my family. That’s something that’s been instilled in me since I was a kid.

George, there is no better tribute to a parent or a Speaker than this.

You and Karen have always recognized that while politics is exciting and invigorating, family is what keeps us grounded.

Speaker, I phoned former senator Joan Cook — that might make you a little bit nervous — and I asked if she would like to share a funny story about you. She said, “George isn’t funny. He’s serious. It’s all about family.”

She went on to say that you had five grandchildren in two years. Now, Joan always knitted things for new babies, but I understand she phoned you, George, and said:

So, five grandchildren in two years — for God’s sake George, tell your kids to slow down. I can’t keep up with the knitting.

George, I am honoured to have had the privilege to serve with you in the Senate for the last 23 years. You have served Canadians and the Senate of Canada with great distinction and you have earned a deep respect from your colleagues. To quote this week’s The Hill Times, your retirement is “. . . a loss for the Senate and the Canadian public.” The descriptions of your decency, commitment and impact on this place cannot be overstated.

The Progressive Senate Group and I wish you and Karen the very best.

Thank you for all you have done.