Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to this bill. Before I address the substance of the bill, and I agree that the bill is non-partisan, I am going to take exception with what the hon. member said about the case of the foreign stripper. I profoundly disagree with his reasoning on that issue. I have not had an opportunity, but I am going to take it now to say something about this issue.
I have never met this individual nor have I seen her, and I do not know her husband either. This is an individual who came from another country and is married to a Canadian. I have to ask myself the question: If the woman had been a Canadian citizen and married a man who came from Romania to be a bodyguard in the same strip joint, would this debate be taking place in exactly the same manner? To ask ourselves the question is to answer it. It is quite clear that it would not have happened.
Perhaps that is a little harder for the minister to say. Because she is a woman, the first thing someone is going to say is that the minister is using that particular way to get herself out of trouble. I have nothing to do with this debate and I am not a minister at all. However, that is the first thing that struck me. Every time the issue was raised, it was the profession of the woman that became the issue as opposed to the cause.
I want to comment on this business of having a meeting in her campaign headquarters. Everyone here who is an incumbent member of Parliament knows perfectly well, and even those who were candidates for the first time, that during the campaign constituents flood our headquarters. They do not know the difference between a headquarters and a constituency office. They show up at headquarters with their employment insurance cheque wanting assistance, and so on and so forth. Do we kick them out? Obviously not--