Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): Sarah Fischer, Director of Communications for the Conservative Party of Canada, posted on Twitter:

It’s just a passport

It’s just a symbol

They’re only words

Only beliefs held by the few

Only traditions that no longer matter

It’s just history

Milan Kundera wrote:

The first step in liquidating a people . . . is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture, its history. Then have somebody write new books, manufacture a new culture, invent a new history. Before long the nation will begin to forget what it is and what it was.

The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.

Leader, the mayor of Terry Fox’s hometown of Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, said yesterday:

Whoever made the decision to remove Terry Fox from Canadian passports needs to give their head a shake. Our country needs more Terry Fox, not less.

I certainly agree with those words. I also agree, leader, with the Royal Canadian Legion statement condemning the removal of an image of the Vimy Memorial from our passports. They said it was, “. . . to put it bluntly, a poor decision,” leader.

This is the result of a government that has a lack of respect for Canadians and Canada’s history, and the heroes and heroines of the past who have made our country great. They have no moral compass.

Leader, why did the Trudeau government make it a priority to erase images of our country from our passports?

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): I find it strange, Your Honour, that you would make a ruling on something without even allowing anybody else to get up and say anything. The fact of the matter is the Speaker last week made a ruling calling the government leader, the Liberal leader, calling him the Leader of the Government —

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): Your Honour, I know that you, others and all of us would like to go next door to an unveiling. However, we did not create the situation here today, others did. We are standing on points of order that we rightfully have, and you, Your Honour, are being put in a very difficult position here, as I’m not sure what your title will be next week. But you are certainly, at this point, in the chair and are going to need to take these matters under advisement.

During Question Period today, two senators made things clear in their questions. One of them was that, “You have given me a sufficient answer, but I have a second question.” The other one made it clear in his preamble, “I have two questions.” I think the Rules of the Senate, again, are that you have a question and a supplementary question. The supplementary question needs to at least refer to the initial question.

Your Honour, I’m hoping that you’re going to agree with me on this point, and in the future you’re going to hopefully police that. When a person asks a second question, it is a supplemental question, not a brand new question, which happened in two cases today where both of the people said at the outset that this is a second question and it should have been caught at that time.