- Member of Parliament
- Member of the Board of Internal Economy
House leader of the official opposition
- Conservative
- Regina—Qu'Appelle
- Saskatchewan
- Voting Attendance: 64%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $172,932.98
- Government Page
- May/9/24 3:25:24 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I rise to add a couple of points to the comments made by my colleague for Lethbridge.
In trying to get to the bottom of who altered the transcript of the Hansard on the day that the member for Lethbridge was kicked out by the Speaker, certain questions were posed to the aspect of the House administration that is responsible for the transcripts for Hansard. Those questions included who gave the order to alter the official record, what guidelines were in place at the time that decision was made and other related points. I will not go into all the questions that were posed, but the answer came back from the Hansard department saying that, since this was raised as a question of privilege in the House, they would refrain from answering those questions from my colleague and instead leave it to the Speaker.
Therefore, I just want to ensure that, when the Speaker does come back on that ruling, those questions that were put to the House administration are addressed by the Speaker.
The material change of the official record is a serious matter. The deletion of the two words “I withdraw” are substantial because the Speaker, on that day, kicked out the member for Lethbridge and deprived her of the ability to exercise her parliamentary duties and rights for the rest of that day. To keep a member of Parliament from participating in debate and being able to vote in potential votes and other types of related parliamentary functions is no small matter. Even though these are just two small words, the matter itself is very serious.
Therefore, I would like to signal to the Chair that we are expecting that the questions that were put directly to the House of Commons administration are addressed in that Speaker's ruling.
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- Apr/11/24 10:04:53 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I understand that the government has just moved a motion, but the Chair had given notice that a ruling on a question of privilege would be forthcoming. Because it is a question of privilege, that always supersedes everything else that goes throughout the day. I was wondering if the Speaker would be delivering his ruling on the question of privilege before entertaining this motion.
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- Mar/18/24 8:10:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I understand that, in the moment, you might have made a ruling. It is common for Chair occupants to do this, before necessarily hearing arguments, when it is expected to be of a routine nature.
However, as many Chair occupants have had to deal with in the past, when parties raise substantive objections after an initial ruling, the Speaker can go back and take a look at it in light of the objections raised. In that spirit, I hope that you, Mr. Speaker, will seriously consider the points that I am about to raise.
First, we should talk about how we got here. Normally, under the motion that was adopted to guide votes in the House, there is a provision that any recorded division that is demanded is deferred until the next sitting day. First and foremost, that would be the normal course of events. Today is the allotted day for the NDP. If that happened normally, at the end of the day, the Speaker would interrupt and defer the vote until the next day. All members would have the opportunity to study the main motion and any amendments that were received.
That is not happening today for a very particular reason: On the sitting day prior to the two-week constituency break, all parties agreed to not sit on the Friday after the passing of the Right Honourable Brian Mulroney, former prime minister of Canada. In order to facilitate the respect being given to former prime minister Mulroney, all parties agreed to a couple of things.
The NDP agreed to have their opposition day today, Monday, instead of the Friday before that break period. In exchange for that, Conservatives agreed to a motion that would require the vote to be held at the end of the day. That was a good faith measure in order to accommodate the spirit of all MPs who were paying tribute to a deceased prime minister. That was granted.
Now we find ourselves, today, literally at the eleventh hour of the debate, with a massive change to the motion. We are not just talking about a slight amendment to a coming into force date or tweaking a number here or there. We are talking about 14 substantive amendments to the main motion. Many of these rise to the level of what I would urge you, Mr. Speaker, to rule out of scope. They rise to the level of having the same effect as defeating the motion itself. House of Commons Procedure and Practice is very clear on this, saying that to have such a substantive amendment that it completely changes the nature of the original motion is out of order.
The proper way of dealing with a motion that is unacceptable to a member of Parliament is to vote against it. If there is a small adjustment that could be made to accommodate one group, one desire or one perspective or another, that is one thing. This happens all the time. There are amendments moved at committees and on the floor.
However, the jurisprudence from the Speaker on altering the main motion so dramatically is very clear. Rather than seeking to amend that motion, the proper course of action is for MPs to vote against the motion, defeat it and come back with a substantive motion that would incorporate the changes that any member was seeking.
As I go through the list, the first one is so glaring. The original motion calls on the Government of Canada to unilaterally recognize the state of Palestine. The amendment is so different, and it is not just my view. I think any fair reading of the motion would say that this has the effect of negating the original motion.
Amendment (m) seeks to replace paragraph (h) with the following: “reaffirm that settlements are illegal under international law and that settlements and settler violence are serious obstacles to a negotiated two-state solution, and advocate for an end to the decades long occupation of Palestinian territories”. That is substantially different from unilaterally recognizing the state of Palestine.
Amendment (n) seeks to replace paragraph (i) with the following: “work with international partners to actively pursue the goal of a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East, including towards the establishment of the State of Palestine as part of a negotiated two-state solution”.
That is so different. The original motion just says that Canada would recognize the state of Palestine. The amended motion says that it would work toward achieving that goal, work toward a negotiated two-state solution, which by the way is the long-standing position of previous governments. That change is no mere grammatical or semantic change. It is the crux of what is being debated today.
It is a major point in the debate that has been carried all day today, so to bring that amendment forward in the form of a last-minute amendment to the main motion rises to the level of being so out of scope and so fundamentally altering the nature of the main motion that it should be ruled out of order.
I could go on and on. There was no notice of this. We, in the opposition, negotiated in good faith before the break week to accommodate the NDP supply day. We agreed to hold the vote at the end of the day. Normally, this vote would have happened tomorrow. At the very least, there should have been some kind of notice.
I believe this calls for the Speaker to rule this amendment out of order, or at the very least, to use the power of the Chair to defer the vote until tomorrow, where in so doing all MPs would have time to absorb these massive changes and vote on them. In essence, give members of Parliament the time they would have had if the normal course of the parliamentary calendar unfolded with supply days and deferred votes.
I strongly object to this amendment being ruled in order. I urge the Speaker to reconsider this in light of the precedents I cited and the aspects of the amendment that contradict in such a direct way the essence of the main motion. At the very least, and I do not want to give the Speaker an alternative to what I just suggested because that is the main thrust of the argument, use the power the Speaker has to so order the flow of business to defer the vote until tomorrow, after which MPs will have had the time to examine exactly what is before them.
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- Dec/5/23 3:42:26 p.m.
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I appreciate the difficult position this scandal has put you in, and I appreciate your ruling, where you spelled out the normal course of actions for members to follow when dealing with a chair occupant or dealing with the Speaker. I appreciate that you also acknowledged the time-sensitive nature of what this scandal has caused for the House and for members. As you know, I made substantive remarks yesterday in making the case for this privilege motion. To save the House's time, I will not go through all of those again, but will just sum up the points.
The Speaker has incredible authority here in the chamber. The Speaker makes decisions that are not subject to appeal. There is no higher authority whom members can ask for a second opinion should they lose out on a point of order or on a question of privilege. The Speaker's word is the command during debates. If the Speaker does not like something that was said, the Speaker can take the floor away from a member. The Speaker has the sole authority to expel a member from the chamber. The Speaker is the only person who can name someone and force them to leave the chamber for the rest of the day. That decision is not appealable either. In other parliaments, that type of thing must be ratified by the House. In our chamber, the Speaker has sole executive authority. The reason I am talking so much about the incredible powers the Speaker has is that, for members to accept someone to hold that power, there has to be trust in that person.
I would like to mention that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Mégantic—L'Érable.
That is the type of authority the Speaker has here in the chamber. Around the precinct, the Speaker also has incredible authority as well. He chairs the Board of Internal Economy. The Board of Internal Economy sets the rules about how members are able to use resources to fulfill their functions, which is everything from printing protocols and ensuring there are adequate translation services to what types of expenses are allowed. It is a very important role. For members to accept someone to hold that authority, they must have 100% trust that the person holding that position is exercising their duty free of any partisan bias and free of any favouritism or preferential treatment.
It can be challenging. We all get elected through a political process. All of us seek a nomination. We join a political party. We sell memberships in that party in advance of a nomination race to win that nomination. During general elections, we pound in signs promoting our party, in terms of the brand, the policies and the leader. We all understand that.
When somebody enters this place and decides to run for Speaker, they usually go to some length to assure members that they do have a non-partisan side, that they can put aside their partisanship and partisan affiliations, and that they can take the Speaker's chair, put on the Speaker's robe and be impartial.
In the case of the current Speaker, the current Speaker was the former president of the Liberal Party. The current Speaker was the parliamentary secretary to the Prime Minister, right up until he ran for Speaker. In the course of this Parliament, between the last election and the date he was elected as Speaker, the current Speaker was engaged in very partisan activities. As the Prime Minister's parliamentary secretary, he was busy because there were a lot of scandals the Prime Minister was involved in. There were all kinds of ethics violations, spending scandals and allegations of corruption across multiple departments. The current Speaker would dutifully go to committee, defend the Prime Minister, engage in filibusters to prevent the committee from arriving at a decision, go on TV with other members of other parties, make accusations and defend his boss in a very partisan way.
We were all asked, as MPs, to take a leap of faith with this current Speaker that after being elected, after winning a majority of the votes in the House, he would go above and beyond what might be expected. Since his partisanship was so intense and so recent, we went out on a bit of a limb to believe he would put aside all that partisanship and would conduct himself in a way that would earn that trust and would justify that trust.
We gave him the benefit of the doubt. That is why it was so shocking. I could not believe my eyes when I saw the image of the Speaker in his robes, in his office on Parliament Hill, at a hyperpartisan political event. This was no quiet dinner among friends. This was a leadership election convention for the Ontario Liberal Party, a party in a province that he does not currently reside in.
I was shocked. At first, I honestly thought it was a bit of a joke. I thought somebody was trying to troll me or something. I did not believe it at first. Upon seeing the other images shared and the video itself, I realized, oh my goodness, the Speaker has actually done this.
Here is why it matters for Canadians. We heard the Speaker's excuse yesterday. We talked about the incredible authority, the need for trust between the House members and the Speaker.
We can think of other examples of institutions in Canada in which we can all instantly recognize the need for impartiality and the need to make a serious change if that impartiality is ever broken. Imagine a case in the NHL, if there were images displayed of an NHL referee wearing his referee's uniform and giving a pep talk to the Toronto Maple Leafs in their locker room during intermission.
How would fans of the Montreal Canadiens, the Ottawa Senators or the Edmonton Oilers feel if they ever had to see that referee ref a game between their team and Toronto?
It would not matter if the referee did that because he happened to know one of the players or maybe he had some close personal relationship. He did not expect it to be videoed; he just thought he could go in and say a few encouraging words and then leave. It would not matter, because once one sees that image, one cannot unsee it. That doubt will always be there. Doubt is the opposite of trust.
Imagine a defendant in a court case, where someone texts them an image of the judge, in his robes, at a backyard barbecue with the Crown prosecutor. The judge might have all kinds of context that he would want them to understand before jumping to conclusions, but would a defendant want to go through a trial proceeding with a judge who had shown that kind of partiality and bias? I would not.
Imagine a situation between a union and management that has gone to arbitration; the arbiter is then seen at a restaurant in his attire, in the same clothes he wears during the mediation session. Now he is sitting down with one of the parties involved in the dispute. Would a union want to accept a ruling, even if there was context and a rationale behind it? Of course it would not.
That is the situation we find ourselves in here in the House. That is why our recommendation to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs will be to recommend to the House that the Speaker resign. We do not believe that, to go forward, to accept those rulings without appeal, the current Speaker can fulfill that role.
Yesterday, I mentioned a few very important cases that are technically still under the purview of the Speaker. One touches on whether the budget bill was properly introduced. The government made a ways and means motion error, and we contend that this motion should have been ruled out of order. That is taxation and spending.
For us to trust that the Speaker made that ruling last week free of any bias or partiality is just impossible after seeing those images.
I hope my colleagues in the House will agree with me that this situation is serious and that it matters not just to members but also to Canadians. This is the pillar of our parliamentary democracy. Members should support this motion and support our calls at committee for the Speaker to do the right thing, put the institution above himself as an individual, make the role primary and step aside.
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Madam Speaker, I am rising on a point of order challenging the admissibility of Ways and Means Motion No. 19 concerning the fall economic statement implementation bill, which was tabled earlier today by the Deputy Prime Minister. It is my submission that the motion offends the rule against anticipation, sometimes also known as the “same question rule”. That rule is described on page 568 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice, which reads as follows:
The rule is dependent on the principle which forbids the same question from being decided twice within the same session. It does not apply, however, to similar or identical motions or bills which appear on the Notice Paper prior to debate. The rule of anticipation becomes operative only when one of two similar motions on the Order Paper is actually proceeded with. For example, two bills similar in substance will be allowed to stand on the Order Paper but only one may be moved and disposed of. If a decision is taken on the first bill (for example, to defeat the bill or advance it through a stage in the legislative process), then the other may not be proceeded with...If the first bill is withdrawn (by unanimous consent, often after debate has started), then the second may be proceeded with.
The rule against anticipation has been building a significant number of precedents in the past few years in light of the NDP-Liberal government's growing pattern of stealing common-sense Conservative private members' bills to add to their own legislative agenda. While our authorities suggest that such points of order should be raised only when the second question is actually proposed from the Chair, I recognize that in light of Ways and Means Motion No. 19 being an omnibus proposal, exceeding 500 pages in length, you, Madam Speaker, might appreciate having the evening to reflect on the issues I am about to discuss before the government intends to call it for consideration tomorrow.
In the present case, Ways and Means Motion No. 19 includes provisions that the House has already adopted in principle at second reading through two private members' bills.
On September 20, the House passed second reading Bill C-318, an act to amend the Employment Insurance Act and the Canada Labour Code, sponsored by the Conservative hon. member for Battlefords—Lloydminster. The summary printed on the inside cover of the bill reads:
This enactment amends the Employment Insurance Act to introduce a new type of special benefits: an attachment benefit of 15 weeks for adoptive parents and parents of children conceived through surrogacy. It also amends the Canada Labour Code to extend parental leave accordingly.
Last week's fall economic statement on pages 43 and 42 states that:
The 2023 Fall Economic Statement proposes to introduce a new 15-week shareable EI adoption...Surrogate parents will also be eligible for this benefit.
The 2023 Fall Economic Statement also proposes to make amendments to the Employment Insurance Act, as well as corresponding changes to the Canada Labour Code, to ensure that workers in federally regulated industries have the job protection they need while receiving the EI adoption benefit.
Those provisions appear as clauses 342 to 365 of Ways and Means Motion No. 19. While the legislative language used varies, the ultimate policy objective and therefore the principle of the matter remains the same as a close examination of the two passages I quoted reveals.
The second private member's bill stolen by the government this week is Bill C-323, an act to amend the Excise Tax Act, mental health services, sponsored by the Conservative member for Cumberland—Colchester, which the House passed at second reading on September 27. My colleague's bill would amend sections 1 and 7 of part II of schedule V of the Excise Tax Act to exempt psychotherapy and mental health counselling from GST. Clause 137 of Ways and Means Motion No. 19 would do the exact same thing, except that the government refers to “counselling therapy” instead of Bill C-323's “mental health counselling”. That is, I would submit, a distinction without a difference.
Indeed, I would draw the Chair's attention to clause 144 of Ways and Means Motion No. 19 that makes coordinating provisions if each is enacted, which demonstrates the government also sees these as identical measures, but what is especially galling is subclause 144(5), “For greater certainty, if this Act receives royal asset then the other Act [Bill C-323] is deemed never to have produced its effects.” The government would prefer to toss my colleague's important bill down the memory hole. That is just shameful.
Your predecessor, on February 18, 2021, at page 4256 of the Debates, ruled that government Bill C-13 could not be proceeded with further following the House's adoption of Bill C-218, citing the rule against anticipation. In so ruling, the Chair said:
The House is now placed in an unusual situation where a decision was made on one of two very similar bills standing on the Order Paper.
The Chair recognizes that both bills are not identical; they are, however, substantially similar as they both amend the exact same provision of the Criminal Code for similar purposes....
Consequently, as long as Bill C-218 follows its course through the legislative process during this session, Bill C-13 may not be proceeded with.
As for the technical differences between those two bills, the Speaker offered a common-sense solution to reconcile them: “the Chair notes that other avenues would be open to the House to achieve those same ends, such as through amendments proposed to Bill C-218 during the committee's study.”
I would respectfully submit that if the government has any concerns about the drafting of Bill C-318 or Bill C-323, the solution is to bring amendments to committee, not to bigfoot them by throwing them into an omnibus budget bill, but that is exactly what happened here. It is what happened last year when Bill C-250, sponsored by the hon. member for Saskatoon—Grasswood, was scooped up by the government and placed in Bill C-19, a budget implementation bill.
In a May 11, 2022, ruling at page 5123 of the Debates, the Deputy Speaker held:
Bill C-19 was adopted at second reading and referred to the Standing Committee on Finance yesterday. The House is now placed in a situation where a decision was made on one of the two bills that contain very similar provisions....
The Chair recognizes that these bills are not identical, as Bill C-19 is much broader in scope and contains other provisions related to the implementation of the budget.
However, in adopting Bill C-19 at second reading, the House has also agreed to the principle of that bill, and consequently, has agreed, among other things, to amend section 319 of the Criminal Code dealing with hate propaganda. As I explained a few moments ago, these are provisions substantially similar to the ones contained in Bill C-250.
Therefore, the question for the Chair is, should Bill C-250 be allowed to proceed further in the legislative process at this time? In the Chair's opinion, it should not be allowed. The House should not face a situation where the same question can be cited twice within the same session, unless the House's intention is to rescind or revoke the decision.
In the case of Bill C-250, the Deputy Speaker directed that it be held as pending business until the final fate of Bill C-19 could be determined. On September 20, 2022, your predecessor ordered Bill C-250 to be discharged and dropped from the Order Paper, given that Bill C-19 had by then received royal assent. A similar pair of rulings occurred on June 6, 2022, and May 11, 2023, in respect of Bill C-243 in light of its overlap with Senate Bill S-211.
While these rulings are all quite recent, they were not novel. Speaker Michener, on March 13, 1959, at page 238 of the Journals, reached the same conclusion for managing this sort of legislative traffic jam:
Thus I have come to the conclusion that this bill must stand, as well as the other bill in the same terms, or at least in terms for exactly the same purpose, until the bill which was first moved has been disposed of either by being withdrawn, which would open the door for one of these other bills to proceed, or by way of being approved, which would automatically dispose of these bills because the House would not vote twice on the same subject matter any more than it would debate the same subject matter twice.
Standing Order 94(1) empowers and directs the Speaker to, “make all arrangements necessary to ensure the orderly conduct of Private Members’ Business”. That standing order, I would submit, behooves you to safeguard the process of Private Members' Business as much as possible by drawing a firm and bright line for the government to stop poaching common-sense Conservative bills and claiming them as their own.
One final consideration I want to place before the Chair is one that did not arise in the context of the pairs of bills and the precedents I have cited. We are dealing here with a ways and means motion, not a bill. Bosc and Gagnon, at page 568, explain the relevance of this distinction in the role against anticipation:
According to this rule, which applied to other proceedings as well as to motions, a motion could not anticipate a matter which was standing on the Order Paper for further discussion, whether as a bill or a motion, and which was contained in a more effective form of proceeding.
The associated footnote points readers to other authorities for a fuller explanation, such as the U.K.'s Erskine May. That book's 25th edition, at paragraph 20.13, explains:
...a matter must not be anticipated if contained in a more effective form of proceeding than the proceeding by which it was sought to be anticipated, but it might be anticipated if contained in an equally or less effective form. A bill or other order of the day is more effective than a motion....
This principle was explained matter-of-factly by Speaker Casgrain on February 24, 1936, at page 68 of the Journals: “A Bill has the right-of-way and cannot be sidetracked by a Motion.”
In the circumstances, if the precedents and procedural authorities of this House are to be applied consistently, Ways and Means Motion No. 19 must be put into abeyance pending the outcome of Bill C-318 and Bill C-323. I would urge you, Madam Speaker, to so rule.
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- Nov/27/23 3:26:05 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to touch on something you referenced. You said toward the end of your ruling that indeed other things were said, and you were urging all members to adhere to your statement of a few weeks ago. There is an issue, though. You have now indicated that the member for Miramichi—Grand Lake has to specifically apologize in order to be recognized by the Chair going forward. In fairness, that same standard should be applied to members of the government, who today and last week were making all kinds of terrible insinuations that are on par with calling other members sympathetic to or supporters of Hamas.
What I endeavour to do now is go through the blues for today and the transcripts from last week and provide you with specific examples where that same standard should be applied to government ministers. I will then await your ruling ordering them to apologize for their remarks.
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- Nov/8/23 4:19:14 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague, the hon. whip, has raised a very important point. Your ruling is that you are not in a position to make a determination. The Canadians who saw that gesture can and clearly are, and they know what the hon. member did; they can see the obvious gesture.
Mr. Speaker, you have said that you are not in a position to take one member's word over another, which is fine. It is now on social media. It lives on there. Canadians, especially the voters in Avalon, can make their own determination about whether they think it is appropriate, when people are struggling with their home heating bills, to get the finger from a member who was voting against our common-sense motion.
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- Oct/16/23 4:31:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I just want to add my voice in support of the comments made and the point raised by my colleague in the official opposition.
I will endeavour to not repeat what she has so eloquently put before the House, but I want to stress a couple of points. The first is that there is definitely precedence on things, such as legislation being leaked, constituting a breach of privilege. That has been well established. My colleague very skilfully underlined the fact that that was a new precedent at the time Speaker Milliken made his ruling.
This is an unprecedented situation, to find ourselves in this part of the life cycle of our Parliament, where the Speaker's position has now been filled by someone who was a parliamentary secretary right up until the moment of the Speaker election. It is new territory for parliamentarians.
The fact that the Speaker has had to rule on something that he himself was implicated in, in his previous position, is unprecedented. That is why our suggestion was that the proper way of recusing himself would be to put it to the House to decide.
It is important for parliamentarians to remember that the Speaker does not, formally, rule that a breach or a contempt has taken place. All the Speaker does is act as a filter, to say that a situation, on its face, or prima facie, rises to the level that we set aside all other business of the House to allow members themselves, and the House itself, to determine whether or not there is a breach or a contempt.
Our suggestion was that putting it to the House and removing the Speaker from that filtering position would not set a precedent in the case of the Order Paper question that prompted the original question. It would not bind future Speakers to rule that incomplete answers would necessarily, on their own, rise to that level. It would just say that, in this specific case, because of the Speaker's involvement in his prior role, the Speaker would remove himself from that filtering role.
The decision that was made today by the Speaker to recuse himself by way of allowing or empowering the Deputy Speaker to make the ruling was not something that the opposition had considered before the last break week. We had proposed an alternative. The Speaker had not yet ruled on that.
To find out by way of a public blog that that is the course of action that the Speaker is taking rises to the level of raising this question of privilege here today.
It also does not address the points that we made about the Speaker's conflict on the original point. It is true that the Speaker did underline for the House this morning that the Deputy Speaker is selected by the House. That is true. There is a motion that is put forward to the House and the House agrees with it, but that motion is proposed by the Speaker.
The Speaker is the one who consults with other party leaders and proposes that name to the House. The Deputy Speaker is not fully removed from, at the very least, that perception of a conflict of interest. Having been in the roles of both the Deputy Speaker and the Speaker, I can also speak to the dynamic way that the Deputy Speaker works with the Speaker. It is very clear that the Speaker is at the top of the list for chair occupants, and that deputies and assistant deputies are his or her subordinates.
That is why the statement by the Speaker this morning still does not address that aspect of the conflict. I would also pose the question to the Chair, because this decision was made on the Friday, not in the House but through what seems to be some kind of a political blogger, and that parliamentarians have not had the opportunity to raise this concern about even having the Deputy Speaker make this decision, we still believe that there is a point there that needs to be addressed.
I just want to stress that I believe the best way to move forward on this is to have the Speaker fully recuse himself by not delegating it to a Chair occupant, not delegating this question to his deputy, but by just stepping back and saying that he would let the House decide this one because he is not in a position to act as that filter.
I do not think it is too late. I understand the Speaker did make that statement this morning. I would urge him to look at the intervention by my colleague, my remarks and comments by the House leader for the New Democratic Party, and come back to the House with the tidiest solution that keeps the Speaker, as an individual and his entire office, out of the appearance, or even the suggestion, of a conflict of interest by putting it to the House to decide.
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- Jun/5/23 12:46:17 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I take the point. I anticipated that you were going to mention that ruling, so I have something that I would like you to consider. We do have question period later on today—
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- Mar/30/23 3:19:47 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, related to your ruling, I want to indicate that, of course, Conservatives will respect your ruling and we hope the Liberals will too.
On February 2, the Liberal Minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario posted on Twitter a day-in-the-life video, which includes footage of members sitting in the House during question period. I will be happy to provide the Speaker with a link to that video so that he can take a look at it and I—
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Mr. Speaker, on the same point of order, I appreciate my hon. colleague raising this matter. Of course, the official opposition has many concerns with the bill, both with respect to its substance and its procedural aspects.
My understanding is that this point was raised at committee. The Liberal chair of the committee ruled the point of order out of order and allowed the committee to continue to proceed with the setting of the bill. I understand there was a vote to challenge the chair's ruling on that. I was wondering if the hon. House leader for the NDP could tell me how the NDP members voted on that question when the chair's ruling was challenged, a vote which would have done exactly what he is now asking the Speaker to do.
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