That Standing Order 11(2) be replaced with the following: The Speaker or the Chair of Committees of the Whole, after having called the attention of the House, or of the Committee, to the conduct of a Member who persists in irrelevance, or repetition, including during responses to oral questions, may direct the Member to discontinue his or her intervention, and if then the Member still continues to speak, the Speaker shall name the Member or, if in Committee of the Whole, the Chair shall report the Member to the House.
Elizabeth May: Mr. Speaker, I do not know if my friend from Timmins—James Bay was as shocked as I was when I asked the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister about the substantive concerns of Democracy Watch, and the response from the parliamentary secretary was to attack the ethics and honesty of someone who has been an ethics champion in this country, Duff Conacher, whose reputation is beyond reproach. He is so non-partisan that in 2006 he tried to convince me that the Conservative Party’s ethics promises were good enough that we should look forward to its forming government. He is totally non-partisan.
I wonder if the hon. member for Timmins—James Bay has any thoughts as well on the role played in pursuing a real conflict of interest act from Democracy Watch.
Paul Calandra: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I would be more than happy to actually find the quote that I was referencing for the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands and table it in the House tomorrow. I would be happy to actually provide you with a copy of the quote. Before you rise in the House and impugn my reputation, you might want to take a look at what—
The Deputy Speaker: I would remind the parliamentary secretary to address his comments to the Chair.
Paul Calandra: Mr. Speaker, I will be more than happy to do that for the House, to reference those comments that were made by Democracy Watch and provide a copy to the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands and table that in the House tomorrow.
Charlie Angus: Mr. Speaker, we certainly heard from a wide variety of witnesses. I have to say that one of the great things about the ethics committee is I have immense respect for the people who come forward at the ethics committee, because we deal with issues of access to information, issues of privacy and issues of ethics. I do not want to single out any particular witness, but I would say that we had such a high calibre of witnesses who came forward with such excellent recommendations across the political spectrum.
This is why I am so frustrated that these key recommendations were completely ignored and in fact undermined by this report. The respect that should be given to the people who came forward to be heard, to speak, to offer us their ideas were not heard, and that is really what needs to be in this record at the end of the day.