Ottawa

Peace in our time

Yesterday afternoon, NDP MP Jonathan Tremblay rose to address the case of the missing toy space shuttles.

The facts are as follows: the parcel in question, which was addressed to my colleague but mistakenly delivered to my office, was opened by a member of my staff who failed to notice that the parcel was not addressed to me and did not take the trouble to verify the addressee. As my colleagues know, we all receive many letters and parcels, and as everyone will understand, not every piece of mail is necessarily examined carefully. However, that is no excuse.
I also note that the email referred to by my hon. colleague may have added to the confusion. It read, and I quote, “We received the parcel on the member’s behalf.” The member in question was me. A member of my staff still believed, until yesterday, that the parcel had been addressed to me. The objects in the package were mistaken for promotional items, such as we all receive at our offices and do not always know what to do with. I usually distribute those kinds of items to the people of Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord. Unfortunately, that is what happened to the items addressed to the member for Westmount—Ville-Marie.

Mr. Tremblay accepted fault, apologized and offered to both “pay all costs incurred to rectify the situation” and “make a personal donation to the charity those items were supposed to benefit.”

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