Mr. Speaker, the bill is a very balanced one. It has been so balanced to ensure that it withstands the challenge under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and sees to it that it fulfils our obligation under the Geneva convention. I can assure the member who is still worried that the bill will stand those tests.
I was taken aback when the member tried to insinuate-and I hope he did not mean it but he said it-that the government has a strategy to get ethnic Canadians to debate the issue. Irrespective of origin Canadians are Canadians by any definition. I must tell the member as a matter of fact that I was not sent by my government to debate the bill. I spontaneously volunteered to debate the bill even before the parliamentary recess.
To impute that motive is unconscionable in the Chamber and to impute that ethnicity is to be taken into consideration to me is the highest order of parliamentary obscenity. I hope the hon. member did not mean what he said and I am prepared to accept an apology.