Statement made on 29 October 2009 by Senator David Smith
Hon. David P. Smith:
Honourable senators, I am rising to pay tribute to the late Stanley Haidasz, whom I knew for over 45 years. I knew him back in the early 1960s when he was a young member of Parliament in the Pearson government.
He was born in 1923. He had a very distinguished parliamentary career. He was first elected in 1957. The Diefenbaker sweep knocked him out in 1958, but he came back in 1962 and was in the House of Commons until 1978, when he came to the Senate.
During that time, he had a distinguished career, including a period as Minister of Multiculturalism. He was a medical doctor, a cardiologist, but what I will always remember Stanley for, more than anything else, was that, to me, he was the patriarch of the Polish community in Canada. He was the first person of Polish descent to be appointed to the Senate. Whenever you went to any Polish event in those days, Stanley was there; or if he was not there, they would pay tribute to him.
I will always remember my first visit to Warsaw, which was in 1969. There was a huge building that had been built by the Soviets, and to the people of Warsaw it was a symbol of Soviet oppression. They would point to that building with contempt. They did; I am not trying to change history or anything here.
I was in Estonia in 1989 when the Berlin Wall started coming down. People would come up to you and hug you. A lot of it was triggered by what happened with Lech Walesa and the people of Poland.
Nothing makes me happier than to know that Stanley lived to see democracy in Poland. I will always remember him for that. I pay tribute to him and his memory, and my sympathies go out to his wife.
Please click here to read more tributes to the Late Honorable Stanley Haidasz