Mr. Speaker, I too would look forward to that. We had actually assumed, since the member for Mississauga—Streetsville had a speaking spot yesterday afternoon, that he would do that.
Three important things have happened here that leave me more certain in my belief that this is in contempt of Parliament, based on what the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons has said.
Allow me first to say that there is some urgency to this matter. I would encourage the member in question to seek a space to speak as soon as possible, because the bill is before us in Parliament right now.
It seems that the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons is now offering praise to the member for having fabricated a story entirely and is saying that we should give the member great thanks for having returned and having admitted to misleading the House. That is not the environment that we look to create, an environment in which members can take what he called “anecdotes” and things that they have heard and turn them into what the member for Mississauga—Streetsville said.
What he said was, “I have actually witnessed other people picking up the voter cards...”. He did not say that someone had told him a story, that he had heard about it, or that there was some conspiracy theory out there. He later went on to say, after some time and reflection, “I will relate to him something I have actually seen. ... I have seen campaign workers follow, pick up a dozen of them afterward...” and then went on to say that they committed voter fraud in the last election. This is coming from the Conservative Party, which is in court right now defending itself against serious accusations of actual voter fraud.
My point is that this is not misspeaking. To say “I misspoke” means that an event occurred on a Tuesday, when upon reflection it was actually Wednesday. That is an honest mistake. This was no honest mistake. The member fabricated a story to justify voting for a flawed government bill. He totally invented it. When he came in, it was neither to apologize nor to explain why he invented this story from nothing. He did not apologize and he did not explain; he said that he had misspoken and that he wished to correct the record.
If that is what is considered tolerable and acceptable, and if it in fact should be encouraged, as the House leader says, it means that members of the House are allowed to go around completely fabricating and inventing stories to justify their voting for or against a piece of legislation, and then come back during debate on a private member's bill and say in a quiet and hushed way, “Yesterday I may have misspoken, or two weeks ago I may have misspoken. I do not know; the facts are a bit blurry.”
The facts were not blurry. I have read the citations clearly to the House.
The member has satisfied all three of your conditions, Mr. Speaker, which the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons did not address at all. These conditions are specific and they are difficult to achieve. A person has to work hard to be found in contempt of Parliament. It is not easy and it does not happen very often, and the reason a person has to work hard is that the three conditions are difficult to achieve. We must prove that the statement was misleading. We must also have it established that the member making the statement knew at the time that it was incorrect. Finally, we must establish that in making the statement, the member intended to mislead the House. On all three conditions, the member in question satisfied the conditions for contempt of Parliament.
It is a prima facie case. He did not apologize. He did not explain. He did not rationalize or justify. He just said, “I misspoke.”
Of course, we have latitude when people misspeak in the House. They may refer to the wrong bill, misquote a statement, or attribute it to the wrong person unintentionally. We understand that. We are all human and we all make those mistakes. This was not a mistake; well, it may have been a mistake now that it has come to light.
The fact is that the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons wants us to somehow offer our praise for somebody knowingly misleading the House, knowing something to be untrue, and then using that untruth, that lie, to justify the government's bill about changing our election laws. Is not allowing Canadians their right to vote freely and fairly something we should be encouraging? What has the government come to when it thinks that this is acceptable behaviour?
The member did not misspeak. The member did not make a casual, glancing error or inaccuracy in his statement. He chose deliberately to take something that he knew not to be true and present it as evidence to justify voting for a government bill that would disenfranchise Canadians from their right to vote in a free and fair democratic country such as Canada.
That is what is before you, Mr. Speaker. Those are the conditions that you and previous Speakers have laid out to guide us. We seek your guidance on this. Again, I am prepared to move the motion if you find a prima facie case of contempt.