Mr. Speaker, I am so confounded by the mendacious invective from the Conservative benches, and from the leadership, that I hardly know where to start.
I come from a long career in public service and I have seen my share of sophistry and oratorical parlour tricks, where elected members were trying to confuse the public into believing something other than what was true, other than what was being proposed. What I fear here is that the overreach by the Conservative benches on this matter is so great that it is doing damage to the very institution of public service.
Misleading smart, good people, good organizations into believing that they should not sign the attestation, and that they are therefore ineligible for funding, not only harms those institutions but it harms the students.
Does the member not understand that unless an organization is hiring someone to protest a gay marriage, hiring a student to march against an immigration ceremony, or hiring someone to bar access to a health clinic, they should be perfectly fine to sign the attestation and hire a student? Is that not a clear position?