Senator Plett: I’m sorry.

Senator Plett: Your Honour, if I could make one comment, not with regard to what I did.

Senator Downe: The Speaker is standing. Sit down.

Senator Plett: Your Honour, if I could, please. First of all, it is not allowed to make a point of order during Routine Proceedings.

Senator Plett: I know you take offence to all of our questions — that they are partisan or they are not becoming of an opposition. You hesitate when somebody says “Oh” on this side, you stop speaking and you self-righteously tell us how bad we are.

Leader, Minister Mendicino has misled Canadians many times. Admit that. He is ineffective in so many ways that we would need more than one Question Period just to lay them out, especially with your inadequate answers. He also misled Canadians about Bill C-21 at every step of the way, including the amendments. Leader, we all know that he did. He said he had respect for law-abiding gun owners. No, he doesn’t. He targeted them, not the criminals. He targeted hunters, farmers, Indigenous Canadians, sport shooters and Canadians who live in rural areas.

They can see the truth, leader, despite whatever Minister Mendicino claimed. Why can’t you? It even turned out that NHL star Carey Price knew more about the minister’s bill than the minister himself.

Perhaps some ministers would have been shamed into telling the truth after being so publicly embarrassed. Minister Mendicino is not. Now you’re carrying his water for him in here, leader. Leader, isn’t misleading Canadians about Bill C-21, or misleading Canadians about anything, a reason for a minister to resign?

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): Senator Gold, yesterday, we learned that the Minister of Public Safety, Marco Mendicino, was not only pretending when he claimed that the transfer of serial killer Paul Bernardo to a medium-security prison was “shocking and incomprehensible,” he now admits he knew about the transfer three days before it was public. His staff knew about it for three months, yet claimed they never told him. Correctional Service Canada also say they sent his office communications products in advance.

Leader, this is not the first time Minister Mendicino has bent the truth when it suited him.

You take great exception when we call a spade a spade and come out in the Senate and say what not telling the truth actually is. Then there are points of order raised when we say what not telling the truth actually is.

This isn’t the first time Mr. Mendicino has used ignorance as a shield, but it might very well be the worst. Leader, why is Marco Mendicino still a minister of the Crown? When will the Prime Minister fire him?

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): I find it unacceptable when we are not allowed in this chamber to call a spade a spade. We were told a few months ago by the previous Speaker that calling somebody a liar was unacceptable, and we accepted that. But for us to say somebody is not telling the truth when a person has been caught in telling an untruth, Your Honour, is our duty. Any senator who believes that is not our duty should check to see what his or her responsibility is in this chamber.

When we have a minister who misleads and a Prime Minister who misleads and says things that have been proven over and over again to be false, for somebody to suggest that is unparliamentary for us to say so, that, Your Honour, I suggest is unparliamentary. I will keep on doing my job, our caucus will keep on doing its job, and I trust that every senator in this chamber will respect us for doing our job as we see fit.

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