Mr. JEAN-FRANQOIS POULIOT (Temis-couata): Mr. Speaker, I rise to a double question of privilege, the first one in English and the other in French. In the Ottawa Citizen of July 17 the daily columnist wrote thus:
The development of the day indicated that the terrible-tempered Jean-Fran?ois Pouliot is on the rampage.
I do not object to this, sir; it is a matter of opinion. Then he goes on, making three factual errors in two lines:
Mr. Pouliot opposed the government candidate in Saguenay last winter. . . .
The first factual error is that I opposed no one of the candidates who ran in that county last fall. I opposed no one; I supported one. Then he states that I opposed the government candidate. There was no government candidate there; the government did not give its support to any one of the four candidates in that election. Finally, he mentions Saguenay as the name of the county, when the name is Charlevoix-Saguenay. Then he goes on and says that I aided Mr. Dorion, who was elected as an independent. That is true, and he proved to be one. Then he goes on:
Now, it seems, he is out with a new candidate from Stanstead.
Here is the point I object to, a little further on:
This Stanstead election will be very much of a group affair. There is a racial aspect to it as well.
Well, Mr. Speaker, if the independent candidate who has been chosen by the people of Stanstead were running on a racial issue I would surely not support him, and my record in the house proves very well that I have never indulged in any religious or racial controversies of any kind-either in the house or outside of the house.
Now I turn to French. In Le Devoir of Monday last, July 19, I see a report of what has been said by someone.
(Translation): Mr. Speaker, the Monday
issue of Le Devoir contains a summary of a speech delivered by one Philippe Girard, whom I neither know nor wish to know. The summary of that part of his speech which refers to me is as follows:
Mr. Pouliot has done very good work in Ottawa;-
That is not what prompts me to rise to a question of privilege.
-now, he has been ordered by his leader-
No order has ever been given to me by any one. I have been glad to oblige my colleagues whenever the opportunity to do so arose. Whoever claims that I have received an order from any one in connection with the Stanstead election is uttering a falsehood.
In the second place:
-to go to Stanstead in order to divide the Canadians-
That is another falsehood. I have never sought to divide the Canadians. I have always advocated harmony between French and English speaking Canadians, between the Canadians who are Protestant and those who are Catholic and even those of the Jewish faith.
A third falsehood is this:
-and he has selected as independent candidate Mr. Martin, who, four days previously, had told Mr. Choquette that on no account was anything to be done to divide the French Canadians.
It is odious for a man to utter such falsehoods in public. It is not true at all that I have selected Mr. Martin. I have never selected any one. I have no more selected Mr. Martin as independent candidate in Stanstead than I have selected Mr. Dorion as independent candidate in Charlevoix-Saguenay, but. for one thing, I am sure that Mr. Martin, like Mr. Dorion, will be elected in Stanstead against any opponent.
