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Speaker Andrew Scheer said he would look into tape of the alleged incident.



BACK AND FORTH ALLEGATIONS

In an article in P.E.I’s Guardian newspaper Easter defended himself and blamed Oliver for trying to start a “controversy.”

Oliver said Monday the “decent and smart thing” for Easter to do would have been to apologize in the House of Commons publicly, or at least to him, privately.

‘There was no such salute from me’

The alleged salutes came after MPs had already spent hours voting on the 150-plus amendments to the government omnibus budget bill.

Easter did tell the Guardian he was “peeved” at the time, because Harper was “bowing like an emperor” during the marathon session.

Oliver did not see it that way.

“It is with some regret that I have to inform you that two members opposite, during the cheering when our side was about to vote, used a Nazi salute pointed in the direction of the Prime Minister. I cannot believe they really intended the full implications of that and so I will not mention who they are. This is intolerable behaviour and it should never happen again,” Oliver said last Thursday in the House.

Liberal MP Denis Coderre immediately called the accusation “unacceptable” and said he didn’t want the entire opposition slighted.

Easter also offered a defence, saying he made a gesture that was not a Nazi salute.

“We said that the way they are applauding the Prime Minister every time, they should salute him,” he said.

Deputy speaker Denise Savoie said she did not see the gesture and asked the MPs to move on.

In April, Harper was shouted down by NDP MPs after he erroneously said the NDP didn’t support the war against Hitler in the Second World War. The NDP did not exist at the time and their forebearer, the CCF, did mostly vote to fight against the Nazis.

The CCF’s leader, J.S. Woodsworth, however, did vote against the war. He was a lifelong pacifist.

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