Mr. Speaker, since this morning we have been involved in discussing a matter which could very well have been debated within the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, except for the Reform Party's obstinate insistence that it be brought before this House once again.
We are discussing whether or not it is appropriate to have a small Canadian flag on members' desks. I will come back to this concept of the Canadian flag in a few minutes. For now, however, I would just like to submit to your attention, and to the attention of all those watching us on television as well as those who are with us in the House to watch our debates live, that we have wasted many hours in discussing this unfortunate matter of flags.
We have wasted the time of this House needlessly in a debate on this matter, with all that involves in terms of costs, staff, utilities and so on to run this venerable institution, in order to discuss such a trivial question.
Trivial, because we have been forced, need I remind the House, to take many minutes away from the budget debate, just because the Reform and Liberal members decided in a fit of rehearsed spontaneity to teach our hon. colleague for Rimouski—Mitis a good lesson. I shall come back to that point as well.
Since then, we have consistently been wasting time in this House. We have been wasting the House's time debating this business rather than the budget, as we should have done, rather than the real misappropriation of funds the millennium fund program constitutes.
Rather than debate this matter, we could have discussed child poverty in Canada. We know that Canada's record on child poverty is one of the worst in the world.
We could have discussed the employment insurance program, I would even say the “so-called employment insurance program”, since it is a euphemism for the unemployment insurance program, and we are in fact debating the unemployment insurance program.
We could have talked about it and the reform that has created problems of poverty throughout Canada, especially in those regions where the economy depends on seasonal work.
We could have debated all these issues. But no. Because of the opinionated Reformers, we are wasting our precious time as parliamentarians debating this matter. I consider this a fine example of the Reformers' double dealing.
I had a discussion behind the curtain. I will not mention the name of the Reformer I was having discussions with, but we were discussing the relevance of this debate, and he said, in all seriousness “This is a goodie for us. It increases our popularity, it is unbelievable. You, separatists, you too will benefit from this”.
What could be more appalling than a political party that promotes its strictly partisan interests over what it claims to be defending—national unity?
I consider this a fine example of the double dealing—I would go so far as to say hypocrisy—of that party.
The tendency all too often is to intimate that this debate would never have occurred were it not for the member for Rimouski—Mitis' unfortunate statement on the Canadian flag in Nagano. This is all a circus, a big sham, a farce.
Reformers and Liberal members could easily have used a forum other than this venerable House of Commons to express their disagreement with the remarks made by my colleague, the hon. member for Rimouski—Mitis.
Incidentally, what was so terrible in what the member for Rimouski—Mitis said in Nagano? She made the same comment many members of this House would have made in front of that many American flags displayed all over any Olympic village. They would have commented on the chauvinism of Americans, implying that they were happy to be Canadians because Canadians are different from Americans. And yet, we saw the very same shameful demonstration of narrow patriotism when too many Canadian flags were displayed.
The hon. member for Rimouski—Mitis never made any comment on the flag itself or questioned its relevance, symbolism and importance to a country like Canada. Never did she denigrate the Canadian flag in any way.
We show the Canadian flag the respect owed to the flag of every country around the world and I never heard any of my colleagues utter negative or disparaging remarks about the Canadian flag. Nor is that what my colleague from Rimouski—Mitis did. She simply noticed a fact, as any member of this House might have, had they witnessed a similar spectacle be it in Nagano or at any other Olympic Games.
I understand that several members of this House openly make this kind of comment about our neighbours to the South in particular, when they show off their patriotism for the world to see. Are we Americanized to the point that we now have to use the same tactics when we participate in international events, going as far as to display, during the closing ceremonies at the Nagano games, a huge flag taking up nearly one third of the olympic stadium in a country like Japan?
What poor taste! What a self-centred attitude, which carries with it the risk of bad press for Canada on the international scene. In the past, Canada had always distinguished itself on the international scene by its avoidance of such manifestations of bad taste. My colleague for Rimouski—Mitis said nothing against the Canadian flag or the national anthem. All she did was voice a very straightforward opinion that there were too many flags.
They seized upon this as a pretext for welcoming her back to Canada with a little surprise, one that was totally spontaneous, according to them. That is why all Liberal and Reform members had carefully set small Canadian flags on their desks all ready for a spontaneous demonstration for the benefit of our colleague for Rimouski—Mitis.
This totally spontaneous demonstration took place on two separate occasions on February 26. The first time was in the early afternoon, when she was speaking in response to the budget speech, and some hon. members rose spontaneously to show her their love of the Canadian flag. At that time, Mr. Speaker, you yourself felt that such a demonstration was totally inappropriate.
Despite the ruling made a few minutes later by the Chair, our spontaneous Liberal and Reform members very carefully kept their little Canadian flags ready on their desks in preparation for another spontaneous demonstration of their love for their flag the next time my colleague for Rimouski—Mitis spoke.
This occurred during Oral Question Period, when the Speaker called upon her to speak and she rose to do so. She rose to ask her question, but even before she could get a single word out, our spontaneous Reform and Liberal colleagues stood up, waving their flags, booed her and, in another surge of equally great spontaneity, began to sing the national anthem, thus creating a lengthy interruption in the proceedings of the House and, understandably, giving their Conservative and NDP colleagues no choice but to stand up and sing along. And all of this was perfectly genuine.
What I personally deplore about this incident, is that the arrogant and exaggerated way in which the anthem was sung obliged me to remain seated during the national anthem, a thing I never do. I stand when any national anthem is sung. But it was done with such contempt that it forced Bloc Quebecois members to remain seated.
Some tried to take advantage of the situation by saying “You see, the separatists remained seated; they have no respect for the symbols of the Canadian identity”. This is not true. We respect the symbols of the Canadian identity.