Mr. Speaker, since the Minister of Foreign Affairs has conveniently forgotten his inconvenient words of a couple of weeks ago, allow me the opportunity to remind the House. He said:
We will not throw a member out of caucus for voting his conscience. There will be no whipping, flipping, hiring or firing on budget votes....
Is this 180 degree flip more an example of the lack of influence that the minister has at the cabinet table or did he actually think that his former caucus colleague would surrender his principles, as the minister did?