Thank you, Chair.
The second paragraph on page 338 of Marleau and Montpetit says:
Usually, quorum is quickly restored so that the House may proceed with the business before it. Should the House be required to adjourn for lack of quorum, any Order of the Day under consideration at the time, with the exception of an item of Private Members' Business not selected to come to a vote, retains its precedence on the Order Paper for the next sitting.
Now, this is referring to business in the House, but very clearly what happened, Mr. Chair, is that a motion had been tabled and was in the middle of debate when--and this is televised, so people will hear very clearly--every member on that other side stood up and walked out of this meeting. They started off with counting, and then off they went.
The chair of the meeting, Mr. Regan, then said we did not have quorum, when in fact, Mr. Chair, we did have quorum. If you look at the rules, to have quorum you need to have a member of the opposition; we did have a member of the opposition and five members of the government, so when the members stood up and marched out, we had a reduced quorum. For the meeting to have been called was not appropriate. Then we go back to our procedure; it says that the business that was being discussed now takes precedence.
My question is through you to the clerk. Using Marleau and Montpetit, would it not indicate that the item that should be taking precedence is the motion that the members of the opposition tried to keep from being debated by getting up and walking out of this meeting?