Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.
It is contemptuous, but more importantly it is disturbing. My reaction when I heard that last Thursday was to ask myself what country we were living in. Since when does the Office of the Prime Minister appropriate the name of the government of the country as its own fiefdom? That is what is extremely troubling.
The Government of Canada certainly belongs to all Canadians. It is much more than one person, much more than a Cabinet. The Government of Canada is all of our democratic institutions. I think that journalists or even some of our ministers may use the name of the Prime Minister when referring to the government. That was never an order or a directive from the Office of the Prime Minister when there were Liberal or even Progressive Conservative prime ministers. No prime minister has ever publicly told the federal public service to call the federal government by his name. Frankly, that is truly unacceptable for a country like Canada.