Hon. Leo Housakos: In his ruling.

Hon. Leo Housakos: Thank you, Your Honour. Thank you to Senator Carignan for raising this point of order.

Senator Cardozo, there is no ambiguity. The only ambiguity and confusion there have been in the last eight years is that some in this chamber have allowed themselves to give into the political pressure of the agenda of a Prime Minister who has imposed his vision, political and partisan view on this institution. No ambiguity. It’s in the law. It’s in the rule and the law as stated by Senator Carignan.

More importantly, the current government leader — who styles himself as a representative — if you read his mandate letter, Senator Cardozo, which was issued by the Prime Minister of Canada, he refers to him as the government leader.

After that, we’re a very flexible opposition and we allow people to carry on with their charade, which is fine. If they want to style themselves as representatives, there’s not much representation going on in this place between the government leader and this institution as we’ve seen in Question Period and other exchanges. If he wants to style himself as that, that’s one thing.

But getting up during Question Period and questioning our authority and our right to call him and refer to him as government leader as somehow impugning his reputation, that is a bit much because that is the law. We’re lawmakers.

I will ask people in this chamber to go back to the speech of the Speaker where he mentioned that it’s important that we as an institution are transparent and honest.