Mr. Speaker, the Deputy Prime Minister is scheduled to be the official escort to Her Majesty the Queen when her royal tour brings her to the nation's capital, this notwithstanding that on Friday last he told reporters in Montreal that he favours severing all ties with the monarchy after the Queen's reign ends.
By my count, the Deputy Prime Minister has sworn an oath of loyalty and service to Her Majesty no fewer than four times in the last two years, yet he has used his position as a minister of the Crown as a podium from which to rail against our history and our heritage. The minister says that instead of the monarchy he would prefer an entirely Canadian institution, but he fails to recognize that the monarchy is as Canadian as the House of Commons itself.
I pray that the Deputy Prime Minister will apologize to the Queen when he hosts her. In fact, he should go to the Prime Minister and say that he should not be her host and that the Prime Minister should put someone else in his position when the Queen comes to Ottawa.