Mr. Speaker, all of us in public office have a responsibility in what we do and say, not to use language that is hurtful or which can cause social unrest. The same applies to the media.
On January 13, the Ottawa Citizen headlined the following, “Clarence-Rockland hires language police”. It was false. The city in question was merely passing a bylaw about commercial signage.
The following day the same newspaper headline was, “French revolution”, an equally irresponsible message. Since then there have been bomb threats at city hall and at the day care centre in the municipality, police protection for municipal elected officials and hate messages to all of us in public office in the region.
I call upon the once proud Ottawa Citizen , on this its 150th anniversary, to issue a public front page apology to my constituents, and to its readers generally. Nothing less is acceptable.