Mr. Speaker, because he wanted to hold hearings on the language of advertising in Ottawa, the member for Bonaventure-Îles-de-la-Madeleine is no longer co-chairman of the Standing Joint Committee on Official Languages. He naively thought that he would be allowed to defend the historic philosophy of his party.
Here is what the member said, and I quote: "Organizing public events when people are accused of having broken the Referendum Act is acceptable. But it is not acceptable to defend bilingualism in Ottawa. Yet this is not what I learned from Pierre Trudeau and the current Prime Minister when I was young".
Our colleague has tripped up in the Liberal logic of the double standard. The member now finds himself faced with a difficult choice: follow the example of another great Liberal from his region, René Lévesque, and leave his political party, or follow his whip's orders and wait until the next election for the public to put him out of his misery.