Mr. Speaker, I do not request the floor with a light heart today. Of course you know that I do not call a lot of attention to myself in these precincts. I listen carefully to the debates. I speak only rarely and I avoid partisan ideology at all costs. When I sat in the chair in the 39th Parliament, I learned to fade into the background: as St. Anthony the Great said, “Discretion is the mother of all virtues.”
In Henry IV, Shakespeare wrote, “The better part of valour is discretion”.
Nevertheless, a member opposite has found reason to level criticism at me, criticism that he considers serious. On Wednesday, March 24, the member for Jolietterose on a point of order against me. His accusation is in Hansard, at page 879.
TheHouse Leader of the Bloc Québécois informed the House that on several occasions, namely, on March 11, 12, 18 and 19, I reported on the social networking site Twitter the exact number of members of each party present in the House, mentioning the names of some members who were absent or present. He said that this situation had been troubling him a great deal. I must say that he never shared his distress with me.
He pointed out that there is a rule that during speeches in the House, members may not allude to the presence or absence of a member or minister in the House. He explained that this rule can be found on page 614 of the O’Brien and Bosc book on procedure. Because I have only a fraction of his experience here, I am grateful for the reference the member provided to us.
Nevertheless, he should have continued reading, because the next paragraph on the same page states, in black and white: “The Speaker has no authority to rule on statements made outside the House.”
The social networking site Twitter is in fact outside the House. I must admit that I use that site on occasion. However, I am very careful not to share privileged information there or anywhere else. The member for Joliette claims that this is precisely what I did, using “new technology”. He is mistaken.
First, that information is not privileged. Second, my statements were made outside the House. I respectfully submit that the presence or absence of members on the benches is not a state secret and that, notwithstanding the allegations by my colleague opposite, it is not even privileged information. There are nine television cameras here that are on at all times and that very effectively reveal the presence of members and also the presence of empty seats. There was a time when this television technology was new to the House. It dates from the 30th Parliament in 1976.
I would note in passing that members at that time resisted the installation of that technology for a long time. The Canadian parliamentary system is not new. It dates from 1791. For 219 years, our deliberative assemblies have been open to the public. We had the public galleries for 185 years before the advent of cameras. The gallery opposite the chair was once the ladies’ gallery. The gentlemen were allowed into it provided they wore jackets and ties. The gallery above the chair was open to all members of the public, regardless of dress—workers, anyone at all.
Now, our galleries welcome hundreds of spectators every day. The galleries all around this chamber can seat 556 Canadian taxpayers or foreign visitors. All of them can see who is present or absent, and watch our proceedings and behaviour. Each day, thousands of visitors file in and out of the galleries.
One of the galleries above the Chair is designated as the “Press Gallery”. It includes 74 desks where journalists observe first-hand our presence or absence and our behaviour as well and they often report on it. No secrets there. By the way, none of those 74 seats is occupied right now.
I mentioned Hansard earlier. This official report of proceedings was instituted in 1875. It records the stands taken by each member whenever a vote is taken, thereby indicating who was present or absent. It has been that way for 135 years. But for 84 years before 1875, our predecessors resisted this new technology.
Now let us look at the hon. member's specific complaints. He refers to my messages of March 11. Every fact reported on those messages was clearly visible to any Canadian watching question period and our debates on the parliamentary television channel, CPAC. They were also experienced by any and all of the 74 journalists in the press gallery and to each of the 556 visitors in the public galleries. No state secrets here. No privileged information.
The same is true of the March 12 messages. No privileged information was disclosed, not even the colour of the members' ties. Any knowledgeable observer could notice the same things from the public galleries or from home.
The same is true for the observations of March 18.
The same is true where March 19 is concerned, except this was the first time the secessionist forces' bigwigs took note of my messages because, this time, they felt they were under attack. They are the ones who were absent, the whole bloc of them. They probably decided to do their resistance work elsewhere that particular day. Their protestations are certainly not disinterested.
The hon. member presented no evidence that the public information that was shared via Twitter was initiated from this floor or from the gallery and his claim that the information is privileged is not just flawed, it is erroneous.
His complaint borders on mischief. His attempt to censure me is itself a contempt on free speech.
This is not the first time that a secessionist member has attempted to muzzle me. Indeed, on January 28, 2009, during the second session of the 40th Parliament, the hon. member for Montcalm hurled invectives at me, including this one: “You, shut up.”
He barked, “You, shut up”.
He was that rude in his display of contempt and intolerance.
It is true that I do not share the restrictive ideology of those who want to rip apart the territorial integrity of the best country in the world. However, I will continue to defend all the democratic rights of those who do not share my point of view. This freedom of expression is what makes Canada the envy of the world.
I remember a great parliamentarian with whom I worked during the 37th Parliament and with whom I sat during the 39th Parliament. I will always have fond memories of the late Benoît Sauvageau. Despite our fundamental disagreements, we worked together to develop the language and the culture that we shared, and which I continue to defend, as my ancestors in Ontario have done since we left Mascouche, in Lower Canada, 175 years ago. Whether the members opposite like it or not, we are Ontarians, not good-for-nothings.
In the second session of the 39th Parliament, the member for London—Fanshawe made an excited statement showing her faulty assessment of the behaviour of the hon. member for Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam. What had trapped her into jumping to embarrassing conclusions was her target's use of a laptop computer, a relatively new technology in this chamber. In response to her utterances, you said, Mr. Speaker:
I have to say that whatever is being talked about does not strike me as being a point of order. The House some time ago allowed members to bring computers into the House. What appears on the screens of computers is not under the control of the Chair. I would suggest that if members have concerns about this, they raise it with the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. If it wants to pass a rule saying computers are not allowed in the House, it can do so.
We have not heard about this subject since. Computers are allowed in this place, and so is the dreaded BlackBerry.
I would like to draw your attention, Mr. Speaker, to a photograph of the second session of the 40th Parliament. This photo is of all of us, published by the Library of Parliament. It was taken by Roy Grogan, as a matter of fact. Half of the members are focused on the BlackBerrys in their hands. Are they sharing privileged information with the outside world? I doubt it. This place has no secrets.
Each day in the House we face a variety of challenges. Each time I think of my father. The late René Galipeau was a humble mechanic. Unlike many of us, he had no pretensions of wisdom, but his moral compass was most reliable.
As a good businessman and like any good father, he managed to overcome a number of challenges.
The quest for eloquence never was one of his personal ambitions.
But he knew that it was his responsibility to pass his values on to his six children. What he said to me was that no matter what you face, you must always be tough and confident, with no false pride, act self-assured, but not stubborn, and be tenacious, but also respectful. He also said that success is a mixture of authenticity, balance and courtesy.
Yesterday morning I had breakfast with the Carlsbad Springs Optimist Club which Mrs. Suzanne Langlois presides over. After the meeting these salt of the earth honest people recited the club's creed, which ends like this:
“I promise [...] to be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.”
This advice is something we should all heed.
Mr. Speaker, you have been invited by the hon. member for Joliette to censure me. This request is aimed at one of the most discreet members of this House, yet it is consistent with the barking invectives of his secessionist colleagues whose ideology is to dismember the territorial integrity of the best country in the world. Their view is that freedom of expression applies only to them, not to those who disagree with their misguided secessionist ideology.
The information that the hon. member would like to stifle is not privileged and it is readily available to the many visitors who are in the gallery at this very moment and to the few others who are watching on CPAC.
The hon. member may have wished to design a trap for me, but when doing so it is always wiser not to use the blueprints of a boomerang.
There is a fine line between humility and humiliation, but those who do not understand the meaning of humility quickly learn the meaning of humiliation.
Members of this House have an obligation to respect privileged information, but we should have no fewer rights than any other citizen in disseminating information that is not privileged. Our procedure and practice is clear on this matter. On page 614 of O'Brien-Bosc it clearly states that the Speaker has no authority to rule on statements made outside the House.
Mr. Speaker, if you do make a ruling in this instance, I respectfully urge you to resist the invitation to censure and to give more weight to freedom of expression for all.
