Mr. Speaker, this arises out of a point of order that was raised last Friday. The government House leader chose to enter the debate earlier this week. I notified the Speaker then that we would take some reflection on what happened on Friday over the course of question period and respond as soon as we could, which is now.
I spent some time looking at and listening to what transpired on Friday during question period and I looked through the blues. There are two central and salient points of the conversation that may aid the Speaker's office, if there is a ruling forthcoming. I am not sure what the Speaker's views are on this right now.
One aspect of this debate on which I agree with the government is the usage of the terms around calling a minister to account and how it is that we, in question period, pose our questions and use the terms “minister responsible for” or “the minister of”, which are proper titles given to ministers. We normally associate that title to their official title. Sometimes that title has a couple of variations, but we attempt in our questioning to adhere to the specific title given to the minister. We think insults or particular impugning of their reputation in that title is inappropriate. We have tried to guide our members in that direction. However, sometimes, either in French or English, that can become a bit murky.
The second point is more a point of interpretation as to what happened on Friday, when some members of the government took offence. When I read the transcript in French and in English, there may have been problems, or interpretations of the interpretation, if you will, Mr. Speaker. Over the course of that question period, we can hear, because of the change in the voice, that a new interpreter was in the interpreter's booth attempting to interpret what was going on in the House of Commons and used different words. I will get to that in a second.
There is a specific reason why we use the term “interpreters” and not “translators” in the House of Commons. It is because simultaneous interpretation goes on here. I have the greatest respect for this work because it is an incredibly difficult job, particularly in the cut and thrust of a question period session. Our interpreters try to understand, but not the exact words. That is not what they do. They do not translate word for word what is being said in the House, but they have to very quickly establish the essence of the question or the answer coming from the government and provide an interpretation of that question and that answer to get the best essence of what is being proposed.
The reason this is important in our conversation today is that there were quite serious accusations made and there were obviously feelings hurt on the side of the government, because of the use of the word saccager.
The exact words were, “la ministre responsable du saccage de l'assurance-emploi”, the minister responsible for butchering employment insurance.
The topic being discussed was the misuse and abuse of the employment insurance system, whereby the government has not only thrown many hundreds of thousands of Canadians off employment insurance, making them ineligible, it has also further exacerbated the insult and the problem by going door to door and performing what some, not myself but others, have called a witch hunt upon those who have rightfully claimed access to employment insurance, which they have paid into.
The point of the word saccager is that one interpretation of what transpired on Friday had saccager as destroying, gutting, wreaking havoc or butchering the employment insurance program. Another interpretation would be the word “looting”. In some of our House discourse, impugning someone by saying he is committing a theft, that the government or a particular minister has stolen something from, in this case, the recipients of employment insurance who have paid into the program, is something that has been found out of order in the past. It has been found to be unparliamentary language. I would agree with that.
In terms of whether a minister is destroying a program, butchering a program or causing a program not to function, there are many candidates within the government that may fall under that particular accusation. We have never found in this place that it is out of order or unparliamentary to suggest that a minister is not performing their job very well. In the opposition's role of holding the government to account, we find far too many instances in which a minister has not performed their duties to the Canadian people responsibly.
Accusations of incivility and, in fact, misogyny are quite strong to make, particularly when made against female members of the opposition by a female minister of the Crown. It is a bit rich for the Conservative government to suggest that the strong feminist voices coming from the New Democratic official benches are somehow representing a misogynistic view of the world. We take the accusation very seriously.
In terms of civility and general decorum in this place, I am very tempted to look to the constant and uncivil attacks that come from the government benches on a daily basis, in question period and outside, and say that it is a somewhat hypocritical stance for the government House leader to suddenly be seized with the idea of civility. However, I will maintain that the purpose and the cause of our initiative to have more decorum and civility in the House of Commons overrides my temptation to further accuse the government of its various personal attacks on members of the opposition, which happen, again, on a daily basis. The higher cause calls me to say that while we will avoid calling ministers particular names in their titles, or misappropriating their titles to make a point, we will not, because it is not appropriate for us, desist from the role of the official opposition when a minister is badly doing his or her job and badly representing the Crown.
The official opposition will talk about the butchering of the employment insurance program until this government changes its position, until it guarantees that the employment insurance program will be restored to its previous form.
I was keenly interested in hearing the government House leader call for civility. Perhaps he can call off his member, who consistently uses McCarthyism tactics to call into question the loyalty and fealty of various members of Parliament or others. He suggests that they are somehow traitorous in their actions when they express an opinion or that Canadians are enemies of the state or foreign-funded radicals when they happen to express a view. The government would do well to take some of its own advice in this regard. If civility is what the Conservatives want, then civility is what they will get from members of the official opposition, but it would be hypocritical for a government to call for such civility, decency and decorum in our debate and then not exercise that same civility.