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“Mr. Speaker, this member is making that up,” Fast said. “It’s completely false. I made no such gesture, I said no such word. I’m surrounded by my colleagues here, none of them saw me make a gesture or make that kind of comment. I ask that member to apologize to me, to this side of the House.”

Ashton says that, while she didn’t see Fast do anything, she was “shocked” at what she called a “threat” to her security.

“You know, women in this House, we often talk about the kind of harassment, the kind of, the heckling, the attitudes we see. This is beyond that,” she said. “I mean this is a threat to, frankly, to security.”

This is a threat to, frankly, to security

Shortly after Harris raised the finger-pointing issue as a point of order, he says B.C. Conservative MP Ron Cannan approached him on the NDP side of the House and had to be physically restrained.

“He was coming down the row, yelling at me and he had to be physically restrained from coming at me…. He was challenging me to come outside. That kind of behaviour has no place in Parliament,” Harris told the CBC. He said he was also approached by Fast.

“He came over afterwards, and he was very angry, denying it and putting his finger in my face from less than the distance that we are. He was basically saying he was going to make life very uncomfortable for me if I didn’t apologize.”

Cannan, however, denied Harris’s version of events, saying he merely told NDP House leader Peter Julian that Harris should either apologize or repeat his allegation outside the House of Commons.