Mr. Speaker, once again, I will point out to my hon. colleague and, of course, yourself, who needs no refresher on this point of privilege, that the normal course of action in Parliament is that when a point of privilege is raised by a member of the opposition, interventions are then made by all parties who wish to contribute to the discussion and a considered response is made by the government. That usually is the end of it, until such time, of course, as the Speaker makes a ruling.
In this particular case, we have had initial interventions from the member for Scarborough—Guildwood and others on the opposition ranks. I, on behalf of our government, made a response. Then there was a further intervention by the member for Guelph on behalf of the member for Scarborough—Guildwood, which precipitated my making a further response to his response and now there is yet another intervention.
We have all said quite honestly and sincerely that we would like an early ruling from you, Mr. Speaker, but if members opposite continue to make interventions and force us to respond, your ruling will be delayed exponentially. I wish that we could get some clarification as to the normal course of proceedings when these points of privilege are raised so that we do not have continuous, subsequent and consequential interventions from the opposition.
I would suggest that if members are not prepared to make an accurate and fulsome intervention initially, they should not be asked to take up government House time by making subsequent interventions. It only stands to reason that their initial question of privilege should contain all of the information required.