Hon. Leo Housakos: Thank you, Your Honour. Now that we’ve had the very liberal interpretation of the Rules, here come the facts.

Honourable colleagues, now, all of a sudden, Senator Gold has embraced his position of government leader. For seven years, he and his predecessors were running away from that wonderful, powerful position — which is, of course, a legitimate one in the Westminster parliamentary system and legitimate in our own chamber, but he has been running away from it for a variety of reasons.

The truth of the matter is that this chamber has become a majority chamber appointed by the governing party. The reason you have not taken steps over the last eight years to make changes to how time allocation is applied, Senator Gold, is very simple: It is because you have had a very cooperative opposition throughout this time.

Hon. Renée Dupuis: Your Honour, I’d like to raise a point that hasn’t been addressed so far. In your consideration of the point of order raised earlier today, I draw your attention to the fact that there is a discrepancy between the English and French versions of rule 7-2(1) of the Rules of the Senate.

In your consideration of this point of order, I’d like you to clarify this matter. In your interpretation of the question, I would like you to examine in particular the two different versions. The English version, which reads “have failed to agree,” doesn’t mean the same thing as the French version, which reads “n’ont pu se mettre d’accord pour fixer un délai.”

I wanted to bring this to your attention. I don’t want to take up any more of your time. Thank you.

[English]