Okay.
On the point, the member is quite right in terms of the applicability of our mandate. I have ruled on this many times in the past, and we can only deal with public office holders as defined.
Some members of Parliament are public office holders, but not all members of Parliament. The reverse, though, is public office holders who are elected--ministers and ministers of state, parliamentary secretaries--are all members of Parliament. Because the last part refers to meeting the ethical standards from public office holders, that standard can't be applied to members of Parliament who are not public office holders.
Technically, I think it's workable, but it would have been maybe desirable to include, after the words “members of Parliament”, the phrase, “who are public office holders”. That would have resolved it.
I'm going to allow the discussion to carry on, since a simple clarification would be possible, but there is no question that should this matter proceed it would only relate to the incidents that involved ministers, ministers of state, or parliamentary secretaries. All other members of Parliament would not be party to any of the discussions.
On the point of order, I'm not going to sustain the fact that the motion is out of order or outside our mandate, pending resolution of the point that the member has raised, which can be simply resolved.
The member has put this motion before us. Do I have to read it into the record, or should we just assume everybody has it? Okay.
Madam Freeman, are you prepared to move your motion this morning?