He is an officer of the House of Commons and his obligation is to conduct himself with the highest integrity. Not only is he one of us as a member of Parliament, he is entrusted with a special responsibility of upholding a code of conduct, of upholding the rules, of upholding a type of practice as a member of Parliament that we should all be aspiring to replicate.
I would expect, Mr. Speaker, in this case, that you investigate this matter, that you review the tapes and that you see that this is again part of a pattern of conduct. When the government does not like what it hears, it dispatches members of Parliament across the floor to threaten members of Parliament. It is a serious matter, the kind of matter that we might expect in some of the developing countries in which I spent much of my career, but certainly not here in the House of Commons of Canada. I believe if you check with other colleagues who sit around me as well, they can verify that every single word I have pronounced here this afternoon is in fact true.