Debates of March 12th, 2002

Government Response to Petitions

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8) I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's response to two petitions.

Committees of the House

[John Williams, Canadian Alliance, St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 17th report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts relating to chapter 26, Health Canada Regulatory Regime of Biologics and chapter 27, Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission Power Reactor Regulation of the December 2000 report of the Auditor General of Canada.

I am also pleased to present the 18th report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts relating to the Public Accounts of Canada, 2000-01.

Pursuant to Standing Order 109 of the House of Commons, the committee requests the government to table a comprehensive response to these two reports.

Petitions

[Bill Blaikie, NDP, Winnipeg—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present a petition in which a great many Canadians express their concern that the Government of Canada might be asked to support the U.S. national missile defense program to be operated by the North American Aerospace Defense Command.

The petitioners are concerned that NMD, as it is known, is a unilateral initiative of the United States and that it would be a step toward the deployment of weapons in space and lead to a new arms race.

They are also concerned that the NMD would violate the 1972 anti-ballistic missile treaty and run counter to Canada's commitment as a signatory of the non-proliferation treaty to promote complete nuclear disarmament.

With all these things in mind, they ask and call upon parliament to declare that Canada objects to the national missile defense program of the United States and call upon parliament to play a leadership role in banning nuclear weapons and missile flight tests.

Questions on the Order Paper

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.

[The Speaker]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

Supply

[Peter MacKay, Progressive Conservative, Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, NS]

moved:

That this House condemn the government for its failure to implement a national security policy to address the broad range of security issues, including those at Canadian ports of entry and borders, and call on the government to reassert Parliament’s relevance in these and other public policy issues.

Points of Order

[Michel Gauthier, Bloc, Roberval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to exercise my right to rise on a point of order. I am sure that you will allow me a few moments to draw to your attention a few facts which deserve your closest consideration and which I wish to raise following your ruling yesterday granting the Progressive Conservative party a votable motion.

Before looking at the impact of your ruling yesterday regarding the votable nature of the day, I think that it would be appropriate to identify some of the factors taken into account, factors which were the subject of prior discussions between the leaders.

Let us recall that, at the beginning of each parliament, the number of votable days is divided up informally between the parliamentary leaders of each of the political parties recognized in the House.

This division of days took place in the early days of the 37th parliament. All the political parties, all the leaders, reached an agreement as to the number of days allocated to the opposition and the number of days which could be votable.

At the time that we did this, this distribution reflected the representation of the political parties here in the House of Commons. The various opposition parties agreed that the distribution would be as follows: the Canadian Alliance, 11 days, eight of which would be votable; the Bloc Quebecois, six days, four of which would be votable; the NDP, two days, of which one is votable; and the PC/DR, two days, one of which is votable.

So far, some of these days have been used, but not all. Up until March 11, the Canadian Alliance had used four days, of which three were votable; the Bloc Quebecois had used three days, all of which were votable; the NDP had used two days, one of which was votable; and the PC/DR had used one day, which was votable. Therefore, the Conservative Party—it should be noted—has one non-votable day left.

Yet, yesterday you decided to grant the Conservative Party a votable day, unless the leaders of the political parties agree unanimously to a solution that is different from your ruling.

Nothing that was agreed to in the discussions between parliamentary leaders at the beginning of the Parliament can be changed, unless there is consensus among all of the leaders to go back on a decision.

In the past, you made a ruling regarding the fact that the Conservative Party is now associated in a way with a coalition of members, and the two associations form one parliamentary group. However, in your wise decision, you also asked that any changes to be made to the number of questions or on giving the right to speak in the House be made based on a consensus among leaders. This was a ruling that was to your credit, and there were discussions following your ruling.

We did not agree to a distribution of the questions in the House. However, after lengthy discussions, after having made some compromises, after the Canadian Alliance members demonstrated some flexibility, you were able to change the number of questions granted to the Conservative Party and the group of independent members.

However, the spirit of your first decision was quite clear. Parliamentary leaders will have to come to an agreement, otherwise the status quo will apply, and we will reconsider the facts following the discussions.

However, in your decision yesterday, you completely reversed the burden of proof, if I may use this expression. You agreed that the Conservative Party be given an additional votable day, beyond the number of days already provided for in the standing orders, unless parliamentary leaders determine together that this day will not be votable and that we will continue to operate within the framework that has been decided at the beginning of the 37th parliament.

Standing Order 81(16) is clear. It says that:

Not more than fourteen opposition motions in total shall be motions that shall come to a vote during the three supply periods provided pursuant to section (10) of this Standing Order.

The Standing Orders are quite clear: there are 14 opposition motions that may be declared votable. Not 15, not 16, but 14. Thus, the Speaker's decision to make the Conservative Party's motion a votable motion de facto brings the number of votable motions from 14 to 15, which in contrary to the standing orders. In doing so, the Chair is unilaterally amending the Standing Orders of the House of Commons, which provides for 14, according to Standing Order 81(16). This standing order is very clear.

Marleau-Montpetit, on page 726, first paragraph, reads as follows:

However, except in a situation where the limit of allowable votable motions in a Supply period or in any year has been reached, it is not within the competence of the Chair to rule whether or not a particular motion should be votable.

This limit has not been reached. The Standing Orders say 14 days. Marleau-Montpetit indicates to us that the Chair may not change this part of the standing orders unless the total number of days has been reached, and this is not the case.

In making such a decision, the Chair has given itself a power that neither the standing orders, nor the philosophy or the practice recognize.

Moreover, you asked parliamentary leaders to come to an agreement if we do not wish this day to become a votable day. This creates an obligation for all leaders to agree, as provided under the Standing Orders of the House of Commons, and it also gives a veto to the parliamentary leader of the Conservative Party. It is pointless to think that this parliamentary leader, who is asking for an additional votable day, will achieve a consensus with his colleagues, saying that they will comply with the rules of this House. Mr. Speaker, you gave him a power that clearly exceeds the powers of a parliamentary leader. Moreover, you yourself went beyond what is provided in the standing orders by giving this power to the leader of the Conservative Party.

I am sorry, but your ruling is not based on any rule of this House, on any practice, or on any interpretation made in Marleau-Montpetit. Under these circumstances, I really cannot see how we could accept a ruling such as this one, because it clearly exceeds the powers of the Chair.

I remind the Chair that, as the authority responsible for implementing the act and the standing orders, he must ensure that they are applied, including that of Standing Order 81(16), in compliance with well established and recognized practices. The role of the Speaker of the House of Commons is to scrupulously respect the rules and, sometimes, clarify things under certain circumstances.

By granting the Conservative Party an additional day, you will have no choice but to keep following the same logic and deprive another political party from one of its opposition days. But, Mr. Speaker, you do not have that power either. No speaker has the right to make that decision. Parliamentary leaders have come to an agreement under the rules. The reasoning behind your ruling seems to be to strike a better balance as regards opposition days between the coalition and the Conservative Party. This is what I understand from this ruling. However, when we discussed the issue of oral question period, you did not make that decision.

You said that, in light of your decision as Speaker, you were asking the leaders to reach an agreement; that, if there was agreement, there would be a transfer of questions or the right to speak to the Coalition and that, if there was not agreement, then the status quo would remain.

Why, in the case of opposition days, are you reversing the burden of proof? Why, in the case of opposition days, are you allowing this unless there is no agreement? We are not going to agree, because the leader of one of the parties is the petitioning party. So saying this is tantamount to making a wish that can never be fulfilled.

In the spirit of the decision you rendered the first time, and the spirit of the application of your first decision for question period and speaking time, on which the leaders had to reach agreement and consensus, this should be exactly the same thing. You should continue using the same logic, Mr. Speaker, and rule that there could be another division of opposition days if the leaders reach agreement. If, however, there is no such agreement, with all due respect, Mr. Speaker, it is not up to you to change that agreement.

What is more, in rendering such a decision, you are entering into the jurisprudence of parliamentary law an approach that has never been used, one which is contrary to the standing orders and one which people could later on use as grounds for violating the orders.

In fact, since the opposition days have not all been used, if you maintain your decision to assign an additional day to the Conservative Party and the coalition of independent members, you will then need to give the same warm welcome and open reception to requests from my friends in the Canadian Alliance or from my own Bloc Quebecois. There will certainly be some forthcoming from the NDP. When a door is opened in this way, it is like opening the hatch of a submarine during a dive. Who can shut it?

I would therefore ask you sincerely, with the greatest respect for parliament, the greatest respect for the interpretations that have been made to date, and the greatest respect for the parliamentary leaders, to review this decision, once the parliamentary leaders have met this afternoon and discussed the matter. If no agreement is reached, I sincerely believe that your duty would be to continue in the same vein as your first decision concerning questions and speaking time, which is to leave the task of discussion to the leaders, the task of clearing the way, and then to acknowledge a new situation.

I ask you to respect the parliamentary leaders, to respect me, to respect my friend from the Canadian Alliance party, as well as my friend from the New Democratic Party and the government House leader. I ask you to respect a longstanding tradition. I also ask you to maintain your authority as the keeper of the standing orders and to review your ruling, because there is no way, relying on the standing orders, that we can accept such a ruling.

I hope that these few remarks will be enough to convince you that perhaps there has been a misinterpretation of the facts and that you should review your decision.

With all honesty and respect, Mr. Speaker, I ask you to exercise your role as Speaker, which is to see that the Standing Orders are respected. The Standing Orders are clear: this day should not be votable.

[The Speaker]

I have a question for the hon. member for Roberval. Does he believe that the agreement accepted by the House leaders is the one described in the letter, dated February 6, 2001, which Mr. Strahl sent me?

[Michel Gauthier, Bloc, Roberval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I do not have here the letter you are referring to. However, the agreement arrived at by the leaders at the beginning of the 37th parliament was absolutely clear. At that time the member for Glengarry--Prescott--Russell was the government House leader and he informed you of the position of the other leaders.

The agreement was specific, “Canadian Alliance 11 days, 8 of which would be votable; Bloc Quebecois 6 days, 4 of which would be votable; NDP 2 days, one of which would be votable; PC/DR two days, one of which would be votable”.

This is what the agreement stated and, as far as I know, the leaders have not changed it. However, it would have to be changed if you want your decision to be upheld.

[The Speaker]

Is the member for Roberval quoting those figures based on the letter from the government House leader, another source he has quoted or simply a written document?

[Michel Gauthier, Bloc, Roberval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, you know how we proceed. When the House leaders reach a consensus and make a decision, that decision is conveyed to you by the government House leader on behalf of all the leaders. That decision was conveyed to you at the beginning of the 37th parliament. All the House leaders can confirm what I am saying. That was the spirit of the agreement and those were the actual figures in the agreement concluded at the time. I presume the government House leader probably conveyed that agreement to you by letter or verbally or otherwise.

However, right from the start, all the leaders have worked—and by the way this is not the first day in the session—with that option. That has not been changed in the last few days. That is exactly what had been conveyed to you.

How did the government leader convey that to you? I do not know. It is not up to me to know about it, but I do know that right from the beginning of the 37th parliament, that is over the two years ago, we have been following that agreement.

[Randy White, Canadian Alliance, Langley—Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I concur with my colleague from the Bloc and I believe that you and the Table have the number of supply days with each party and the number of votable days. If you look at the list you will see that the NDP has two days with one votable and the Progressive Conservatives have two days with one votable. To do otherwise would upset the balance that has existed in the same number and proportion in the House from the first sitting of this parliament.

Yesterday you ruled that because there was no agreement regarding the allotment of votable supply motions you could not disallow the Conservatives from designating their motion as votable. However there was a deal. It was based on honour and not on paper.

You based your opinion on the assumption that no agreement was apparent. You identified two letters, one from the House leader of the official opposition claiming a deal was struck and one from the House leader of the fifth party making another claim. The letter from the House leader of the Conservatives addressed last year's supply which was an anomaly because of the late start date due to the election. There was a dispute unique to that year and it was resolved by the House leaders. There was never a dispute with regard to a normal supply year. The dispute for this year is new and it breaks the original agreement.

It is unfortunate we did not use some sort of House order to cement the agreement. Normally House leaders honour their agreements. This is a perfect example of how laws are put in place not to prevent honest people from taking advantage of others but to curtail dishonest people. Now the unanimous agreement has been broken.

I will address the definition of agreement you touched on yesterday. I stand by the verbal agreement of the official opposition. I think you will soon find confirmation of it. Other members in the House including the government House leader are likely to stand and support it. We should find that all but one of the parties in the House will agree. The 12 individuals in the fifth party may not. Notwithstanding the position of the Conservatives, there was and is a consensus and therefore an agreement.

As a result of your ruling yesterday you cannot insist on unanimity. If you do there will never be an agreement. You will never get unanimous agreement from the Conservatives because any agreement would prevent them from taking on more votable motions. I am sure you do not mean your ruling to become an obstacle to an agreement. You should therefore make a fair interpretation of an agreement and end the impasse in an attempt to restore integrity to the normally smooth functioning of the House.

My last point has to do with the argument that has been made for the seven independents that attend with the Conservatives. Independents are not allotted supply days. Therefore no claim can be made for more votable supply days as the House leader of the Conservatives tried to claim yesterday.

As you pointed out in your ruling on the matter, the independent members in the coalition have not devoted themselves to the cause in a way that would allow the coalition to present itself as a party in the House. If members have difficulty understanding the concept I will present it in another way.

We could compare the coalition to a ham and egg breakfast. The ham and eggs are both part of the same meal but the chicken and the pig do not share the same dedication. The chicken is only involved whereas the pig is committed. Until the seven remaining chickens get off the fence and follow the pigs into the smoke house the PCs must remain the fifth party in the House. The fifth largest party cannot be entitled to more votable items than the fourth largest party.

The coalition does not deserve what it has. I can understand the members at the other end being upset, but we are talking about the integrity of the House and not whether the fifth party is happy.

There was an agreement. There was no dispute for a normal calendar year. The letter in question from the House leader of the Conservatives addressed last year's short supply year, not a normal calendar year. Despite the lack of unanimity at the moment a consensus of the majority of parties constitutes an agreement by consensus.

Mr. Speaker, I hope you live up to and honour the agreement as we have. If anything, the same situation should exist until all the House leaders agree. If we never come to an agreement the status quo will remain.

[Bill Blaikie, NDP, Winnipeg—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I too will make a comment about the point of order raised by the House leader for the Bloc Quebecois because I share his concern about your decision yesterday. It is a regrettable decision and it could possibly have a lot of negative consequences if you do not find a way to review it and come to some other understanding of how these things should be settled.

It is my view as NDP House leader that there was an agreement as to how votable days would be allotted or, for that matter, how opposition days would be allotted and how votable days within the allotted opposition days would be allotted to the various parties.

I offer as evidence not just my memory of the fact that there was an agreement but the fact that the NDP which has used up both its opposition days had only one votable day out of the two opposition days. We had a non-votable opposition day and then we had a votable opposition day on which we are having the vote tonight. If we had thought in any way that there was an agreement which would have permitted us to have two votable opposition days we would have sought to have both our opposition days votable.

On the face of it, it is clear at least from our point of view that there was an agreement. However I think there was an agreement and what has happened is a form of parliamentary mischief, to put it kindly, on the part of the PC/DR caucus, Mr. Speaker, and I do not think you should fall for it. My problem is that in making the ruling you did yesterday you have left yourself open to the accusation that you have been part of the parliamentary mischief on the part of the caucus I refer to.

Mr. Speaker, the evidence for this is in the Hansard for yesterday although you were quick to deny you had any intention of ruling on the larger matter. The fact of the matter is that the attempt by members of the PC/DR caucus to have their motion votable was in their minds connected to the larger question of their status and rights in the House of Commons. In commenting on your point of order The Progressive Conservative House leader said:

This issue ties into another larger issue you are aware of and on which you have also ruled. That is the fact that the coalition now has 19 members, members of the Democratic Representative caucus and members of the Conservative caucus. It was different when the original arrangement was--

You cut him off there, Mr. Speaker. Perhaps the House leader of the Conservatives was inadvertently referring to the agreement that existed with respect to votable opposition days when he was talking about the original agreement.

Mr. Speaker, the Conservative House leader sent you a letter in March, 2001 disclaiming any part of any agreement having to do with votable days, but nevertheless I see evidence here of the fact that there was general knowledge of such an agreement. Last year we had no such dispute on the floor of the House of Commons about votable days and opposition days.

If this was a matter to be raised independently of the new situation the House leader of the Conservatives finds himself in, why was it not raised last year? It was not and that is because there was an agreement. There was a general understanding and agreement that the NDP caucus was clearly operating out of, otherwise we would not have willingly foregone the opportunity to have an extra votable opposition day.

Mr. Speaker, I urge you to find a way to get yourself, or for that matter the House, out of the hole being dug here with respect to the value and reliability of agreements that are entered into by the House leaders.

If we were to accept the logic of the ruling yesterday, which is to say that whenever someone wants to break an agreement, there has to be agreement otherwise the person who breaks the agreement gets their way, is a perverse sort of procedural logic that I think would wreak havoc both with respect to this decision and with respect to the others.

As the House leader of the Bloc pointed out, one would hardly expect the Conservative House leader to agree that he was wrong in putting forward a votable motion. Why would you give the veto, Mr. Speaker, to the people who were the mischief makers in the first place, to the people who were trying to transcend or go beyond or break, however one wants to put it, the agreement that was in place? It just does not make any sense and it sets a very bad precedent.

It may be that you were not fully aware of the facts with respect to the agreement or with respect to the fact that all parties in the House agreed, with the exception of the Conservatives, and I would say even they, I think, at some point knew there was an agreement but may have had a different view of how much they liked that agreement. Nevertheless there was an agreement. If you were not aware of the facts, if you were not aware of that general agreement about there being an agreement, this would be a forgivable thing and you could move on and say that now that you were fully aware of the facts you could make a different decision. If you do not, I think you will certainly have established a very bizarre sort of precedent procedurally, which is whoever breaks an agreement has to agree. It is so bizarre that I am not even sure how to phrase it.

The fact is, Mr. Speaker, you have given a veto to people who are trying to break agreements and I do not think that is a good idea at any time.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, the government for obvious reasons has no direct role in determining which opposition party gets which opposition days. However of course in the interest of assisting the House in doing business, the government has participated in discussions with the parties on such matters.

I have heard the description by the hon. member from Roberval of the agreement. My understanding is that description as he put it is accurate.

[Peter MacKay, Progressive Conservative, Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to the rather sanctimonious and righteous comments directed at myself and members of the coalition. I have to take issue with much of what has been said.

I am quite surprised frankly at my colleague from the NDP and some of his commentary, but perhaps I should not be. I think there is another motivation here that is obviously at work. I need not go into detail on that, but clearly the correspondence that you have in your possession, Mr. Speaker, indicates that there was no agreement. I took the step of putting it in writing, therefore leaving a paper trail in anticipation that something like this might happen.

There is some irony obviously, and I need not point it out, but the member who originally made the request is now sitting as part of the coalition. There is almost an interest against self-interest here.

Having referred directly to the member from the NDP, I guess I should mention, and I use these words cautiously, my colleague from the Alliance, and I guess there is an old expression that comes to mind “You don't expect more than a grunt from a pig”. I take great umbrage with his comments and his belittlement of our party. In the context of this, here we are now discussing this issue for 45 minutes on an opposition supply day--

[The Speaker]

I think we have had quite a lot of references to bovine things this morning and it would be better if we avoided those kinds of references. I think hon. members know that. The hon. member for Pictou--Antigonish--Guysborough has the floor.

[Peter MacKay, Progressive Conservative, Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, NS]

It is actually porcine, Mr. Speaker.

My colleague from the Bloc Quebecois refers to the burden of proof, and in essence I think their suggesting that it should be a reverse onus. The fact of the matter is, Mr. Speaker, you made a ruling. I suggest there is no ability to simply reverse that ruling now based on a dispute over whether in fact there was an agreement or not.

My NDP colleague says that it only used one votable supply day and it had another supply day that it could have deemed votable. We were in the exact same position. I would suggest that we chose to make this day votable in the understanding that we would have another votable day before parliament recessed in the summer.

With respect to the shortened supply day, that was in fact the last time we had this discussion. It was during that shortened supply day that there was an attempt by the official opposition to limit the number of days the PC Party would receive. At that time there were discussions.

Since that time, I would suggest they have simply acquiesced, suggesting that somehow everything was agreed to, that we could simply forgo this issue of how many supply days there were and shorten the number of days upon, which the official opposition and the other House leaders are now maintaining was the agreement. My submission is there was no agreement. I went to the trouble of checking any correspondence that I might have in my office and speaking with members of my staff who were present at every House leader meeting that I attended. I am afraid that this is down to an issue of who said what.

I resent that somehow my integrity is being impugned because I am trying to create mischief or I am somehow trying to get something that this party is not entitled to. I would suggest that what we are doing at this point is simply eating up time and beating the clock, much to the benefit and delight of the government. I find it really perverse.

I know from previous conversations that the efforts of members of the various parties here, the second, third and fourth parties, who are now training their guns on the fifth party would be far better spent devoting their time discussing this very relevant supply day in criticizing the government on its performance when it comes to security. Instead, the true priority of the temporary House leader of the Alliance Party comes out here in directing his attention toward a party I guess he feels quite threatened by.

I would suggest, Mr. Speaker, that your original ruling should stand. There is no new evidence before you that would reverse that decision. In fact the original references to the standing orders and to the rules of engagement in the House of Commons should be applied and respected.

[The Speaker]

I am not sure there is a lot I can add that would be useful at this point in time. I am prepared to revisit the matter in light of the comments I have heard today and I am prepared to do that now.

I have a question for the hon. member for Pictou--Antigonish--Guysborough. At the conclusion of the point of order yesterday, after my ruling had been given and there was some objection, I suggested there be a meeting of the House leaders. Could he tell me whether one has taken place since then?

[Peter MacKay, Progressive Conservative, Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, NS]

Mr. Speaker, there has been no meeting of the House leaders nor has there been a request for one. I would suggest that on previous occasions, such as when we were making submissions about the status of this party in the House, when I attempted to secure a meeting of the House leaders with the now Leader of the Opposition, there was absolutely no effort and no co-operation.

There has been no approach or attempt whatsoever to convene a House leaders meeting. I was not able to glean from your suggestion and your ruling yesterday as to who should initiate such a meeting.

[Randy White, Canadian Alliance, Langley—Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, notwithstanding these comments from the righteous individual at the other end, there was no need last night to have a House leaders meeting because we knew this was coming before you today and I believe you were advised of that. If we do require a House leaders meeting, that can certainly be undertaken today. In fact, there is one scheduled for 2.30 this afternoon.

Notwithstanding whether a meeting took place or not, that is not the issue. The issue is whether or not four out of five parties in the House, which all have the same agreement and understanding, are wrong or everyone else in the House is wrong and the hon. self-righteous member at the other end from the Progressive Conservatives is right.

[The Speaker]

That is not the issue as the Chair sees it. It says in Marleau and Montpetit, at page 725:

Although the government designates which days shall be used for the Business of Supply, the opposition parties decide among themselves which party will sponsor the motion and whether or not, subject to the provisions of the Standing Orders, that motion will be brought to a vote.

What is clear from the discussion we have just had, and from the point of order raised yesterday, is that if there was an agreement, it has broken down. It is not in effect. The Chair is put in the position then of making decisions based on the precedence that I have referred to in the decisions yesterday.

If the parties make another agreement, that is up to the parties. It is not for the Chair to make the agreement unless the parties fail to reach agreement. Then, it seems to me, the Chair may have an obligation to step in and do something.

As I say, I am prepared to take this matter under consideration. I would urge the four opposition House leaders to meet to see if they can achieve an agreement. If I can assist, of course, I am more than happy to provide assistance, but I believe agreement is what the standing orders really demand in the circumstances. It appears to me, from all I have heard today and yesterday, that if there ever was an agreement, which seems to be disputed, that agreement no longer is considered binding.

The Chair is put in an awkward position. I am prepared to do my utmost to ensure that we get an agreement. If that means meeting later this morning or earlier this afternoon, whatever is convenient for the House leaders, the Chair would be more than happy to facilitate. However I suggest they meet on their own first to see if some arrangement can be made, and that arrangement could deal with today's motion.

In the meantime, might I suggest that we proceed with the orders of the day. I will get back to the House later with a ruling in respect of yesterday's ruling. However, in the circumstances, I do not know that there is much more I can do at this moment.

[Randy White, Canadian Alliance, Langley—Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would just like to clarify what you just said. Does that mean then if the Canadian Alliance members, for instance, no longer agree on the question period format or the statement period format, that we can enter into a new agreement with yourself?

I just want to clarify that because, if we had an agreement that was a longstanding agreement and someone says that now we do not have an agreement, that stands for virtually everything we do in the House, and quite frankly I guess question period would be off too.

[Michel Gauthier, Bloc, Roberval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, before going any further, I would like, with all due respect, to make some points very similar to what we have just heard from my hon. colleague.

By resolving, in this House, an issue between House leaders, you will be setting a precedent which whoever sits in the chair will have a hard time ignoring.

Let me point out that there was an agreement and, as long as the Chair is not advised that there is a very broad consensus or even unanimity among the leaders to revisit the matter, the agreement stands. It is a matter of mutual respect between the political parties in this House.

I believe that it would be excessive and inappropriate for the Chair to decide, at the request of one House leader no longer happy with the agreements that have been reached, to get involved in a decision, if only to chair a meeting between House leaders, which has nothing to do with the role the Chair should be playing in this House.

Things have been working well in this House for many years now because leaders have played the role of leaders and Chairs have played the role of Chairs. For things to keep going well, everyone has to stick to his or her role.

Since all House leaders, except one, the one who has submitted this request, acknowledge that there was an agreement—and we have the figures and the documents to prove it—and since this agreement has been upheld for the last two years of this Parliament, if the Chair were to interfere because one of the House leaders had expressed some concerns, you would put yourself and your successors in an extremely difficult situation.

I felt I had to make this point out of respect for my colleagues. I do respect the Chair, all my colleagues respect the Chair, and the Chair has always shown respect for the House leaders and will continue to do so, I am sure.

[The Speaker]

I do not want to continue this unnecessarily. I seem to have heard from everybody almost twice now. Does the hon. member for Winnipeg--Transcona have something important and very brief to say?