Mr. Speaker, before I address the specific question by my friend from Ottawa South, I would like to say that today is a very sad day in official Ottawa.
This week, Richard Brennan, who is affectionately and sometimes unaffectionately known as the “Badger”, and who works in the National Press Gallery for the Toronto Star, will leave the Parliamentary Press Gallery and return to the Toronto Star headquarters in Toronto.
The Minister of Finance, the Minister of Industry, the member for Toronto Centre, the member for Hamilton Centre and I all thought we had escaped the wrath of the Badger when we left Queen's Park or, in some cases, were asked to leave Queen's Park. He returned like gum on a shoe that one just cannot get rid of.
However, we want to wish him very well. To paraphrase John Diefenbaker when he talked about Jack Pickersgill: “A scrum without the Badger would be like hell without the devil.”
We do wish him the very best as he returns to Toronto.