Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): This is truly a dark day for the Senate of Canada.

With respect, Your Honour, you said that the government leader says — or you refer to belonging to the government party. Senator Gold, of course, does not belong to the government party. By his own admission, he doesn’t belong to the government party.

I am extremely disappointed that this ruling would have come down without it being in writing. Clearly, this was — please, senators. I respect your right to your opinion. Have respect for mine. Except for yours, possibly. I’m getting a little tired.

Your Honour, I have the utmost respect for you, even though I may struggle with respect for others, but I want to have the utmost respect for this chamber and everybody here. And just because we, as the opposition, have a role to play as the opposition, which Senator Lankin has been a part of and, when she was a member of the opposition, did what this opposition party does, and she has a very short memory.

Senator Lankin: I never said —

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): I was not going to rise on this point of order. I was going to let you make a ruling. For some reason the government leader — which he is now hopefully going to be styled as forever and a day, and we will certainly be making that request to Internal Economy that everything is changed here, that he is now the government leader, because, of course, in your ruling you styled him as such — but that’s not what I’m speaking to.

Senator Gold just simply referenced my comments as somehow being relevant in this point of order. My comments that I made about Senator Gold were during my speech. He had the opportunity to debate those comments, and he did that forcefully and vigorously.

I said earlier today, Your Honour, I may not agree with Senate colleagues, but I will defend to the death your right to your opinion.

Senator Gold has an opinion of our conversation. I have a different opinion. I relayed to this chamber what my opinion was, and he relayed what his opinion was, and they were completely opposite. One of them clearly cannot be entirely correct, and the other one possibly entirely false. I’m not sure. I had an opinion of something, and he, according to what he is saying, had a different opinion.

That is not what this point of order at all, Your Honour, was related to. The exchange that Senator Gold and I had in this chamber was about a point of order that I legitimately raised on an issue that has been a long-festering issue for seven or eight years.

Senator Housakos and then Senator Carignan spoke to an issue that happened by other senators, not Senator Gold making disparaging comments possibly towards me. I take no exception to what Senator Gold said in any of his speech, and I hope he doesn’t take exception to what I said. But I hope, Your Honour, that you will entirely ignore the comments that Senator Gold just made in regard to this point of order because they were entirely irrelevant to this point of order.

[Translation]