Mr. Speaker, I am sorry, but I am suffering. I have been ill all weekend and you can tell by my voice. I am coming to that as well.
Mr. Speaker, the last wounding charge was the suggestion that I was deliberately absent from the House on that Friday because I could not get my 100 signatures.
Mr. Speaker, I have to tell the hon. member opposite something. I was sick. I was very ill. On Wednesday I had a sore throat and was afraid I had strep throat. On Thursday I carefully backed off going around trying to collect my 100 signatures because I was afraid I was contagious. I have to admit that I would have been delighted to sit behind the member for Athabasca and maybe make him a little sicker, but I did not.
Mr. Speaker, I will point out to you that the member for New Brunswick Southwest will recall that I came over and sat in those chairs where the pages are right now. He called me over because he wanted to talk to me about Bill C-206. I sat there in those chairs and I said “I am sorry, I cannot come any closer to you because I am afraid I have something. I do not want you to become ill”. If I did not pursue my signatures on Wednesday and Thursday it was for the very good reason that I did not want to risk the members of the House getting the illness that I had.
If there is any doubt whatsoever from that party opposite that I was sick on that particular day, I have here—and I can give it to a page—the actual doctor's prescription that I received at the very moment that the member was making those charges against me. I deliberately did not fill this prescription so that I could present it in the House as evidence that I was indeed sick at the time that we are speaking of. If I can get a page to come up, this will show you, Mr. Speaker, that it is an actual document. It is a prescription.