Mr. Speaker, for those following along in this sordid affair of a Conservative MP being found in contempt of Parliament by the Speaker, the Conservatives have now added even further insult to injury to Canadians. The context for this was their so-called fair elections act, which would muzzle the Chief Electoral Officer and make it more difficult for Canadians to vote. They put time allocation on that. They limited the debate. Rather than consult with Canadians, they said there would be no consultations with Canadians about our elections law and no further debate in the House of Commons, and then they had evidence made up by Conservative MPs to justify and rationalize the debate. When it was pointed out that the Conservative MP was not telling the truth to Canadians and Parliament, he was found in a prima facie case of contempt by the Speaker of the House of Commons.
Extraordinarily, the Conservatives think the best way to remedy this is to congratulate the Conservative MP for not having told the truth and for what a great fellow he is, and to say that everybody does it, so that is fine too. Then, while we are in the midst of the debate about how to make this better, so that the Conservatives do not keep rationalizing their bad legislation through completely invented and falsified accounts of something so important as voter fraud, they are shutting down the debate on that.
When we only have a hammer in the toolbox, every problem looks like a nail. That is what the Conservatives do. They shut down debate, shut down Parliament, and hold the place in contempt. That is what is being done here today, nothing more, nothing less. It is shocking to me that a sitting Government of Canada finds this kind of behaviour acceptable and to be encouraged. What message are the Conservatives sending to Canadians about how much respect they have for the people who put them here, those who voted for them, and the vast majority of Canadians who did not and who would certainly not again come the next election.
My question to the government House leader is this. How do the Conservatives have the audacity to stand here and shut down debate in our Parliament when we are dealing with an issue wherein a member was held in contempt for not telling the truth about a flawed and unfair elections act proposed by his same government?