Mr. JEAN-FRANCOIS POULIOT (Temiscouata): Mr. Speaker, I rise to a question of privilege. This morning the Ottawa Journal published a lengthy editorial about a member of the House of Commons in which they refer to his so-called buffooneries and bad manners. They continue:
Last session, for example, Mr. Pouliot's combination of clowning and bad taste, exhibited in childish antics and atrocious attacks upon a well known and respected civil servant, blurred whatever good work was done by a parliamentary committee on the civil service, helped to bring the committee into contempt.
Last year the Ottawa Journal published an article entitled "Inviting contempt for parliament," in which the writer wonders whether much of the contempt one hears expressed regarding our democratic institutions is not often deserved. That article had to do with the appearance of Mr. Foran before the civil service committee. I afterwards telephoned to the writer of the article and asked him why he had defended Mr. Foran in the name of democracy. He answered me that occasionally he played golf with him. The article
Questions
this morning speaks of "vulgar abuse," "primitive blackguardism" and "buffoonery that is vulgar and vicious," and goes on to state:
-and even when it comes from a quarter making an argument for its being excused.
Of course, that is very bad English. The editorial this morning is headed: "An M.P. >
who should be tongue-cuffed."
There is no such word in the king's English. Apparently that is a new word for a new kind of torment or corporal punishment which is being invented for members of parliament.
I shall have to write letters of sympathy to my colleagues who are to suffer from being "tongue-cuffed." All this is said because the member for Temiscouata decided to express his views about some members of the civil service who, by the way, are members of the Rideau club. I expected that to come, but I regret that such language has been used by this paper. On the other hand, it is not the paper which has spoken, it is the Rideau club. For the information of the house, may I say that the language which has been used by the Ottawa Journal with regard to the member for Temiscouata is precisely the same language which is used daily with regard to my right hon. leader, the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King), to the hon. leader of the opposition (Mr. Manion), to the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth), to the hon. member for Lethbridge (Mr. Black-more) and all their supporters in the house, by the small gang in the Rideau club which pretqnds to rule this country. That is all I have to say. .The house is informed now.
