Mr. Speaker, it is not with pleasure that I will use my eight minutes because the debate imposed on us by the Bloc is a sad one.
In the few minutes I had before question period, I think that I showed clearly that we have before us a case of defamation that constitutes a serious attack against my reputation and that of other members of Parliament. I also tried to explain the unexplainable and that is how the Bloc Québécois could fall so low into such cheap politics.
I proposed two possible explanations. I will let you be the judge of their value. According to the first one, in the last two years, the Bloc has been using smear tactics, generalizations and defamation in this House, thus abusing their parliamentary privilege. Members of the Bloc also did that outside of the House, up to now avoiding what could so obviously become a libel case. This time, however, they went too far.
I put forward another hypothesis, that this way of doing things is a symptom of something bigger, of a behaviour that has been characteristic of the Quebec sovereignist movement and which consists in attacking reputations and persons, particularly francophone Quebeckers who defend Canada, and goes as far as demonizing them because they lack rational and reasoned arguments to convince Quebeckers to renounce Canada. I will not belabour that point.
In the minutes that I have left, I call on all members in this House, including members of the Bloc Québécois, to use their sense of honour. If they have the least sense of honour, instead of delaying the work of the House, as they are now doing, immediately following my speech, they will rise to say that they are committed to reimburse the taxpayers money that was used to indulge into character assassination of members of Parliament and to send to all Quebec households, using their own money, the corrections necessary to the householders where my face and the one of other colleagues appear in such an unfair and abhorrent way.
Members of the Bloc Québécois must stop delaying the work of the House. They have violated this institution enough, and they must immediately move forward the process that the member for Bourassa has taken to defend his reputation and his honour. If they continue to delay the work of the House to keep it from providing justice to us, I personally warn them that I will not have much patience and that I will take civil action.
I would also like to say that, if the Bloc Québécois has a sense of honour, it must stop making arguments that are political and intellectually dishonest. I will give some examples.
Some Bloc members said that they did not want to tarnish the reputation of some ministers, because there is a footnote in the householder. Members will excuse me for removing my glasses, but this footnote is in very small print and it says: “Have appeared before the Gomery commission”. If I understand correctly, saying that some witnesses appeared before a commission gives one the right to tarnish their reputation and to imply that they were complicit in criminal actions. This does not hold water and will never hold water before any court. It is as if the bill of sale for the house that you are buying contained a footnote in very small print that said that you will pay three times more than what you think you will pay. There are laws against that. This will not hold water. They will have to find something else.
The members from the Bloc also argued that they received permission from the House to do such a thing. Let them provide evidence that they received permission from the House. We are still waiting. If that were even true, legally speaking this does not clear them from the responsibility they have toward how they use this document. They cannot put that responsibility on an institution.
The hon. member for Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel presented another argument in which he played with the words. Yesterday in the House he said, “We do not trace the dirty money trail in that document”. However, the same hon. member, in a householder that he sent out in his riding, used the expression “dirty money trail”. Why say one thing in the House and say the opposite to his own constituents in his riding? He is only making matters worse for himself. He should apologize for misleading the House, which is quite a serious matter.
Enough with the double talk that only sinks the Bloc Québécois further into disgrace. Honestly, they have to acknowledge that this is defamation.
In closing, I want to mention one other thing. The householder does not allude to corruption, but simply a process that was in place. However, other householders say, “We must punish the Liberals for their corruption”. In that case, the word corruption appears next to the faces of the parliamentarians in question. If the Bloc is not accusing them of corruption, then what is it doing? Enough with this intellectual dishonesty. This is truly a case of defamation.
I will end my speech where I began, by defining defamation under the law. It is an attack of a person's reputation exposing that person to hate or contempt. It can be verbal or in writing. It matters very little whether the attack is direct or indirect, or whether it results from a statement, insinuation, connotation or imputation.
This case does not involve a comment as such, but clearly a statement or an insinuation. As the courts have established many times, it is the general impression conveyed by an article, a publication or a comment. In this case, there is no doubt in my mind that the document attacks my reputation. I will take every necessary recourse, since precious little is more important than a person's reputation, honour and integrity.