Mr. Speaker, I have a couple of quick things. It seems like the member is challenging the Speaker's ruling. In his statement the government House leader said that the member did not intend to mislead the House. There are three criteria to be found in contempt of Parliament. One of them is that it must be established that the member knew at the time that the statement was incorrect and that the member intended to mislead the House. That is what the Speaker ruled on, that in fact he did intend to mislead the House. Why do we know this? Because he was arguing for this badly flawed election bill.
The government House leader has a bit of a conundrum on his hands. In his celebration of the honour and respect of the member for Mississauga—Streetsville, who was caught not telling the truth and then two weeks later had a moment of conviction, half apologized, and came back to the House, he is saying this action should be celebrated. Would it not better if the member had just not misspoken the first time, if he had not misled the House the first time? Yes, he was found by the Speaker to be in prima facie contempt of Parliament.
One of the criteria is that the MP was trying to mislead the House. That is a fact. The member just stated the contrary. He just said in effect, “I think I'm going to challenge the Chair on this one; I think the Speaker's ruling is wrong, because the member for Mississauga—Streetsville did not in fact intend to mislead the House and Canadians about something so critical as our election laws”. He says this in justifying why the Conservatives needed this massive overhaul that, by coincidence and circumstance, benefits the Conservative Party of Canada, lo and behold, why the Conservative Party refuses to have public consultations, why it refused to consult with the Chief Electoral Officer.
To the member's point about why we want to debate this and to the point about why he wants to shut this down, yes, the member did intend to mislead the House. Yes, he was aware of what he was doing at the time and he was doing it for the most cynical of reasons, to try to convince Canadians and MPs that the bill was required, that there was a problem that he had personally witnessed, a crime that he had witnessed, when in fact it was not true and he knows it was not true and he knew it at the time. How can the government House leader defend such reprehensible action?