Mr. Speaker, I very much welcome the opportunity to enter the debate on the official opposition motion which is before us.
I want to say a few words about what the debate may appear to be about, what the Reform Party would like to pretend this debate is about, and then I want to say something about what this flag flap issue is really about.
The Reform Party would try to create the impression that this is a simple, straightforward issue, that it is a simple question of whether members of the House want to display on the corner of their desks a Canadian flag. That is all it is about. That is all there is to it. Let us just vote for it and get on with it.
I want to say that I do not think that is what this issue is really about. I do not think that is why the official opposition has put before the House today a motion which it wants Canadians to interpret as meaning that we either vote for its motion on its terms and show we are for Canada, we are for the flag, or if we vote against the motion on its terms and then we are not for the flag and we are not for Canada.
This debate is about Reformers whose approach to politics is so simplistic that they would have Canadians believe that flags on the corner of the desks of members of Parliament will unite the country.
There is no committed federalist in this House who is not proud of the Canadian flag. There is no committed federalist in Canada who is not proud of the Canadian flag. Let us be clear. What this is about is the Reform Party trying to create division among those who were elected to this House of Commons to stand up for Canada and to fight for a united Canada. We will not be divided by those crass, cheap political tactics.
Let me briefly review the tactics used by the Reform Party in this flag flap.
First, in what our Speaker has properly ruled as inappropriate, Reformers used a proud symbol of Canadian freedom, our flag, to stifle the freedom of speech of one of our colleagues. Then, not having got their way with the Speaker, out of respect for the Canadian flag, a Reform member threw it on the floor of the House of Commons and marched out of this chamber.
Then Reform members, again not in a very proud moment in the history of this Chamber, tried to intimidate the Speaker by suggesting that if he dared to rule that Reform members had used the flag improperly he should fear for his job. Those kinds of intimidation tactics of the Speaker have no place in this Chamber and have no place in parliamentary democracy.
To make matters worse, the leader of the Reform Party suggested that this kind of hooliganism by his members was perfectly acceptable; it was, after all, just a question of freedom of speech. When I last checked the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, it did not guarantee the right of people to threaten and to intimidate, particularly in this parliamentary institution. It was a shameful display by the official opposition and its leader. It did no credit to any of us.
This is not a debate about the flag. The Reform merely wants to take advantage of any opportunity to create division and confusion. Major issues for Canadians, such as jobs, education and health care, are too important for us to waste the precious time we have here in the House of Commons on other matters. But the Reform members do not seem to find them important.
It is ironic in the extreme that this is the week Reform members wrap themselves in the flag and say they are the true loyalists, the true patriots of Canada. This is the very same week that Canadians across the country are calling on their government and their members of Parliament to stand up for Canada's future, to say no loudly, clearly and without equivocation to the multilateral agreement on investment.
If the adolescent pranksters of the Reform zealots had their way, all that would be left of our country would be the flags in the corner of our desks. They want to see the MAI, an investors bill of rights, approved, an MAI without protection for Canada's culture, without protection for our health care, our environment or our employment standards.
The job of running the country would move from Parliament Hill to corporate board rooms in New York, Tokyo and Seoul. We might be able to have flags in the corner of our desks, but in Reform's Canada after the MAI, MPs would not be able to effect most of the issues that directly affect the lives of Canadians.
That is Reform's vision for Canada. That is Reform's vision for the flag, a small flag on the corner of our desks in a toothless, powerless parliament.
The Reform members showed no respect to the Canadian flag when they threw it on the floor of the House of Commons. I want Canadians to know what the Reform is up to. They are playing a dangerous game, a divisive game, a childish game, and we must join forces to put an end to it.
The official opposition is behaving like a school yard bully. We all know the way to deal with bullies and that is to stand up to them. Mr. Speaker, in your ruling yesterday you did that. In our dealing with their antics today we also must do that.
The motivations are suspect and transparent. They say they want to reduce the question of whether we are for or against Canada to a simplistic question of whether we are for or against flags in the corner of our desks.
Last week it was Reform members who thought so little of our Canadian flag and who were so disrespectful of the Canadian flag that they flung it on the floor in this Chamber and retreated from the debate. That kind of cheap, crass approach to politics has no place in this parliament. That partisan petty form of politics will not strengthen and unify the country.
New Democrats are proud Canadians. We can match the pride and the patriotism of any federalist party. English Canadians, French Canadians, allophones, immigrant Canadians, aboriginal Canadians, our caucus is made up of people who choose Canada and are proud each and every day to stand up for our Canadian flag.
What is to be done about the motion? What is our responsibility as members of Parliament? Our caucus has carefully reviewed this matter. We have debated this matter. We are absolutely unanimous in our view that Reformers have been irresponsible in their handling of the issue.
They are playing silly games to avoid the reality that they have nothing to say. They do not want to deal with the substantive issues that are at the real heart of the future of a united Canada. That is why we will not play their silly games. We will not dignify those silly and dangerous games by reducing the future of our great country to whether we can accept on their terms that the future of Canada depends on the display of a flag in the corner of our desks.
That is why the New Democratic Party caucus will vote against this official opposition motion and for a united Canada.