Mr. Speaker, I have to say that until today, every time I stand in the House, it has been an honour to talk about bills or a matter that moves this country and my riding of Lambton—Kent—Middlesex forward.
For 20 years, I was involved in municipal government. I started out in planning, became a councillor, and then reeve and mayor for many of those years. Then I had the distinct pleasure and most distinguished honour of being elected to this place to represent the constituents of my riding of Lambton—Kent—Middlesex. I have done so for a little over 10 years now, which I guess says a bit about how old I am. However, I can say that in that time and in my career as a business person, I have never in my life even attempted to visualize the abuse of an institution that we saw yesterday, not by a member of Parliament but by the distinguished head, the Prime Minister, of what I call this great country of Canada.
Every one of us will stand and say what a privilege it is to be here, and it is. I take every one at his or her word. Yesterday, I saw the Prime Minister get up out of his seat for some reason and storm across the aisle. I also watched the video clips last night and I have to say the clips did not show the anger in his face. I have absolutely no idea why a Prime Minister would get angry just because people had not yet taken their seats for a vote on cutting off the time for debate. However, he did. He stormed across the aisle, grabbed the Conservative whip, and dragged him away. Then something must have occurred, because the Prime Minister went back.
Not only did he abuse his authority, not only did he grab the Conservative whip and pull him away, but he went back and used coarse language in the House, which is not acceptable. Nobody on the other side seems to want to talk about it. I have listened to two members across the aisle today who actually tried to minimize what the Prime Minister, their leader, did. It will not get minimized and it will not go away until he does something to make sure there are consequences for what he did not only to our NDP colleague but to the members of the House and to regain the respect of Canadians across the country which was lost yesterday.
I am trying to figure it out. He was like an angry, spoiled adolescent who did not get his way, so he got up and went across the aisle. He instantly apologized. He made the apology not after the first time he crossed the aisle, not after he crossed the aisle the second time, but he made it after the House erupted and he maybe figured out that he had better say something. Then this morning, in a written statement, and my colleague from Portage—Lisgar said, “I understand, not likely a great night,” we have a written apology.
We learn from history. We learn from apologies. He is a great orator. He is a drama teacher. That is his background. He is a good actor.
When a member stands up in this place, we have to take the member at his word. In 2012, the Prime Minister, then a member of Parliament, made a comment to a colleague of mine. I was in the House. He used unparliamentary language. He hurled a comment at our environment minister. We were in government at the time. He said, “Oh, you piece of” and I cannot say the word in this House, but he did. Our Prime Minister, unapologetic about the spirit that moved him, said, “I called him something that was fundamentally biodegradable, compostable and good for the environment.”
Now our colleagues across the way are on their knees saying, “Oh, please, take him at his word. What he said was compassionate and he meant it.” In families and in business, and with people I deal with every day, I take people at their word when they follow their word. I do not take people at their word because they are good speakers, good orators, or a drama teacher before becoming the Prime Minister.
He has brought the House to the point where we have no trust in the government. The government almost lost a vote on Monday, and for almost the first time in the history of Canada, it took the Speaker to break the vote, because people did not show up for work.
We got elected to show up for work. I guess the government was embarrassed because it could not get its members here, so the government drafted Motion No. 6. First of all, the government took away the calendar. What does that mean to the folks who are listening? It means the government can bring bills forward and we will have no time to prepare to debate them. It took away the calendar that indicates which bill is going to be on the docket, and we would have no time to prepare for it. We have a dictator who created a motion that more or less says, “We are going to tell you when you are going to speak, what you are going to speak on, and by the way, we will tell you what the bill might be, just before we introduce it.” That is not democracy.
Democratic reform is a bit of a joke after the actions we have just seen. The Prime Minister has taken away the ability of the opposition to oppose. That is what we do. That is our mandate.
I am going to be looking for the consequences that Canadians are asking me about. The question of privilege will be going to PROC, which is rigged up and has a majority of Liberal members on it, but what sort of consequences will there be for our Prime Minister?