Mr. Speaker, I wish to inform Members, the public and members of the media, before Ms. Devine does, that yesterday I approached Ms. Devine inquiring as to whether she was going to play hockey on Friday or not. And that if she was up to the challenge, and if she agreed to play, I would do so as well. She very quickly concluded that I meant to inflict some violence on her...
---Laughter
...and scampered off to the media room. I was sorry for it because that was not the intent. It was only my intention that if I was going to try to play hockey with members of the media and my colleagues, I didn't want her to be sitting in the bleachers furiously scribbling down her observations about my, perhaps, rather futile attempts. At the very least, I would like some comfort in knowing that she would also be on the ice at the same time, trying to skate gracefully amongst her colleagues as well as ours. I wanted the Members to know that because we never know what the good lady decides to put in her columns, but surely I have been there with great regularity. If it should come up, I wanted Members to know the context in which those comments were made to her yesterday. Thank you.
---Applause