My colleagues, you may have noticed this early in the morning that we have a new mace on the table. This wooden mace was used when the House of Commons, the Centre Block, burned down in the fire in 1916. Every year on this date we commemorate the date of the fire by using this mace.
As we were walking down I heard someone say: "No, we did not melt down the old one, we do have it and we are going to bring it in tomorrow".
This is to remind us that things get a little bit hot in here sometimes and we have to know we can survive and take the heat.
We are all here together as Canadian citizens and it is very important that we work together for the well-being of all our people.
That is what the mace represents and I just wanted to bring it to your attention.