Mr. Speaker, I will clearly speak only to the Bloc's subamendment.
I was saying that there was an attempt to completely shift the debate about the member for Bourassa's motion, which was submitted to the House after the Chair decided that there was a prima facie question of privilege. At the start, he asked everyone to examine the question.
I believe we must go back to the householder. As was mentioned earlier, it was distributed in many Quebec households. It was sent as a householder by 24 Bloc members to the people in each of their ridings. I have a copy here of the one sent out by the member from Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier. When we send a householder to our constituents, we are personally responsible for its content. Therefore, the 24 Bloc members are personally responsible for this content. This is not a group householder but an individual one.
In my political life, I have always considered that, when we are campaigning for an election, we stand for our political party and opinions. We are trying to be elected as representatives of a political party. But from the moment we are elected, we have the duty to represent all of the people, including the ones who did not vote for us.
When a constituent shows up in my office, I do not ask him what candidate he voted for before trying to help him solve the problem he is having with the federal government.
On average, ridings have a population of 85,000 to 90,000 people. Some ridings have more. A householder sent to the population of a riding is meant for everyone, and we represent all citizens. We must be careful about the content of a householder. This is very important to me. But it is true that there is room for some partisanship.
Today I heard the argument that the House of Commons sometimes allows expenses for activities within our political parties. However, there is a limit with regard to the householder sent to the whole population. No matter which party people voted for, they have received that householder. Does it give information about what is going on in Parliament, within the government, or does it attempt to smear the personal reputation of individuals sitting here?
I do not know whether you have read it yourself, Mr. Speaker, but I would encourage you to look at it. The money trail is shown, with arrows. They can tell me there is an asterisk to point out that these are people who appeared before the Gomery Commission, but we all knew that; it was public. But apart from that, there are arrows on the money trail. What is being implied? What is the message they are trying to send to the public? It is that these people were soaking in illicit money, because the word “scandal” was put in. That is what they were trying to do.