Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Public Works has a horrible habit. He says one thing when he means another, or is it that he means one thing and misquotes another? After all, he spends question period quoting from the day to day testimony of newspaper columnists.
Just take Lorne Gunter's Edmonton Journal column from Friday, which the minister used as proof positive that he was on the right side of the sponsorship scandal. But wait, as Mr. Gunter points out in his Sunday column, “Skippie the wonder puppet” took the reference out of context.
Let me correct the minister and tell him what Mr. Gunter really thinks about the Prime Minister's intrepid sock puppet: “Do you ever notice how he looks as guilty as a Liberal about it? He's been totally co-opted”.
I could almost feel sorry for Skippie, a man that the former lieutenant governor of Ontario, Hal Jackman, called “a disgrace to our political system” and “a sleaze of the worst order”. Then again, he would probably just misquote that and think it was a compliment.