The transcripts clearly indicate that Mr. Warawa was absolutely correct in objecting to the decision made by the chair of the day. I quote from the official transcripts of the committee meeting in question.
After Mr. Rodriguez made his verbal motion—which in itself, as I have discussed at length, should have been ruled out of order at the time.... After the motion was made verbally, the chair responds, “We have a motion, but we need to vote on it.”
To that Mr. Warawa, who was in the middle of a point of order, responds, “On a point of order, Mr. Chair, Bill C-288, as I said.... Mr. Chair, I have the right to speak on a point of order, do I not? Are we at the end of our time?”
Then the chair says, “We are at the end of our time. I believe we have a motion.”
Mr. Warawa says, “Mr. Chair, then to do this properly, it should be dealt with at the next meeting. Otherwise, Mr. Chair, I have the right to continue.”
The chair responds, “We have a motion on the table. The clerk tells me we have to deal with that motion.” To that Mr. Warawa responds, “The motion is not in order. I'd like to share the reasons why, if I have your permission.”
Mr. Chair, I don't think I have to go on beyond that. The fact is, as indicated quite clearly in these transcripts, that Mr. Warawa was in the middle of a point of order, and when one is discussing a point of order, one has the floor and one can discuss that point of order, Mr. Chair, for as long as the member wishes. But in the case of Mr. Warawa and the chair of the day, his point of order was interrupted, and that in itself is out of order, Mr. Chair.
That is further demonstration, further proof, to underscore and augment the arguments I'm making to you this morning, that the motion presented by Mr. Rodriguez in and of itself was out of order. The business being conducted at the time the motion was submitted, Mr. Chair, was handled—unquestionably from an inadvertent standpoint—incorrectly, and was procedurally not in order.
The transcripts again, Mr. Chair, I submit, clearly show that Mr. Warawa was in the middle of a point of order, yet was interrupted, and that is against the rules, procedures, and practices of this House. He must be allowed--he should have been allowed at least, Mr. Chair--to continue.
So what do we have, Mr. Chair? We have a number of examples in the case of this particular motion in which protocols have been breached. We have the fact that due notice was not given. That is quite apparent, since the transcripts indicate that this was a verbal motion. The chair admits there is no evidence that a written submission was given, certainly not in both official languages, and in fact the manner in which the verbal submission was entertained, Mr. Chair, was out of order, since Mr. Warawa, as is clearly demonstrated in the transcripts of that last committee meeting, was in the midst of a point of order.
Mr. Chair, that means there have been several breaches of protocol, several breaches of accepted conventions, practices, and procedures that have guided this place for literally hundreds of years.
Do I consider this to be a serious piece of business that needs to be discussed and debated? Absolutely. How can any member think otherwise? Have we not been guided efficiently and effectively in the tradition of the Westminster Parliament for the last century? Of course we have. Why have we been guided by such? Because we have followed the rules of the day.
Now, from time to time, Mr. Chair, rules can change. I understand that. In fact, we just saw an example of it within the last couple of days, wherein certain standing orders of this House were altered. They can be altered at any time. Parliamentarians can change the standing orders. Parliamentarians can change and, in effect, make some of the very rules to which they are bound to adhere.
But, Mr. Chair, the point remains that once rules and protocols have been established, they need to be observed. They have to be followed, because what happens if they're not followed? Would it be the slippery slope?
Some may argue, Mr. Chair, that in this particular case, if this one little thing could be accommodated, if we could just ignore this one little protocol, what harm would it do? After all, there will be 60 days in which this bill can be debated, so who cares? Who cares if we didn't observe proper protocol? Who cares if we got this bill before the committee a day before it was supposed to appear?
Mr. Chair, I would suggest that I care. I would suggest that every member of this place should care, because we are bound not only by convention but by the very rules that guide this place.
I would hope, Mr. Chair, that we would present ourselves as parliamentarians, as examples to the general public of how democracy should work and how parliamentary function should work. Therefore, Mr. Chair, if we choose to ignore protocol, even one little protocol in the minds of some that wouldn't really matter at all in the larger scheme of things, if we just ignored that, what would be the result? I would suggest to you, Mr. Chair, the result perhaps would be one small chink in the armour that we like to think encompasses this very place.
Amongst other things, Mr. Chair, this Parliament was built on tradition, was built on a sense of respect, and was built on a sense of order. Mr. Speaker, I do not believe that at any point in time, any parliamentarian should ignore those very tenets of this Parliament.
If at some point in time, Mr. Chair, protocols, practices, and rules were avoided or ignored, due to a simple error and not corrected, I suppose that's something that we could all live with.
But in this particular instance, Mr. Chair, the error has been pointed out. In fact, Mr. Chair, the error was identified at the very time the submission was being made. This isn't a case, Mr. Chair, where we checked the records three weeks later and said, oh my God, you know something? We missed something there. We ignored protocol; we breached protocol; I didn't realize it at the time, but I realize it now. What, if anything, can we do?
That isn't the case here, Mr. Chair. At the time Mr. Rodriguez was submitting the motion, his verbal submission, there was an intervention. There was a point of order made by Mr. Warawa—a very legitimate point of order, because Mr. Warawa correctly identified that what was happening was in breach of protocol, that Mr. Rodriguez was in breach of protocol, because he was not allowed to verbally move the motion he submitted.
Yet what happened subsequent to that, Mr. Chair? Due to the confusion—and I can only attribute the course of actions that followed Mr. Warawa's intervention as due to confusion—the chair of the day in effect overruled Mr. Warawa's point of order and allowed the motion not only to be submitted and entertained, but he allowed it to be voted upon at the time.
The subsequent vote, as indicated, of course, was that members of this committee would hear and start discussion on Bill C-288 the next sitting day, the next committee sitting day.
Yet that is the whole reason behind my intervention this morning, that that was completely out of order, that Mr. Warawa initially should not have been interrupted. Mr. Warawa, as the transcripts clearly show, was indicating to the chair that he had much more in terms of his argument to present to this committee. That's why he raised the point of order.
Yet unfortunately, and I would suspect inadvertently, Mr. Chair, he was overruled, in effect. That in itself should be reason enough for your ruling that Mr. Rodriguez's current motion is completely out of order. That in itself should be sufficient for committee members to understand that there was a breach, because we have, I would suggest, some very experienced parliamentarians sitting around this committee.
I do not know when everyone was first elected. I believe my colleague Mr. Vellacott was first elected in the mid-1990s.