Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak following the leader of the Reform Party. After hearing what I have to say, I think Reformers will regret having fought to allow me to speak because there were things mentioned in the Reform leader's speech that need to be clarified. Having done that, I will very specifically address the motion.
The whole argument put forward by the leader of the Reform Party on how parliamentarians should behave in this place rests on his statement that the House ought not to blush over the incident that took place on February 26, when the Canadian flag was waved about and the national anthem was sung in this House. There are rules I will remind him of in a moment.
Perhaps I should start by saying that, if there is one man in this House who ought to blush at his own behaviour, it is certainly the leader of the Reform Party, with the political flip-flops he has being doing since becoming the Leader of the Opposition.
We remember the limousine incident in 1993. In front of the media, he gave the keys back. But what did he do the very next day? He got his party to buy him the limousine, with money raised by his party, which is funded to the tune of 75% by the federal government. He also had his suits paid for by his party.
Recently, he described Stornoway as a bingo hall, and now he is living there and renovating it to the tune of thousands of dollars. If there is anyone in the House who should be embarrassed today, it is the leader of the Reform Party.
On this topic, I have one last point. He mentioned pensions, and said that Bloc Quebecois members had revolted in the House because Reform members wore buttons protesting fat government pensions. I look forward to hearing what Reform members have to say in the upcoming re-examination of the pension system, and to seeing how many of them change their minds and want to opt back into the federal MPs' pension system. I look forward to seeing if these political flip-flops will embarrass Reform Party members.
But the matter raised by a member of the Progressive Conservative Party regarding the events that occurred in the House on February 26, 1998 is much more serious. I think that the House can tolerate politics of all sorts. I think that we can have opposing views on the future of the country, budgets, ways of approaching things, or whatever, but I think that all parliamentarians have one thing in common and that is our democratic system.