Standing Order 117, and you mentioned it, deals with in the event of disorder, and this is what House of Commons Procedure and Practice states:
In the event of disorder, the Chair may suspend the meeting until order can be restored or, if the situation is considered to be so serious as to prevent the committee from continuing with its work, the meeting may be adjourned. In addition, the Chair may, at his or her discretion, interrupt a member whose observations and questions are repetitive or are unrelated to the matter before the committee. If the member in question persists in making repetitive or off-topic comments, the Chair can give the floor to another member. If the member refuses to yield the floor and continues talking, the Chair may suspend or adjourn the meeting.
So, I did adjourn the meeting. On your point about the meeting being in suspension, I don't think either of us here has an answer to that at the moment, but I will render a decision on that at a coming meeting. It is a point. I, too, know when you have the deputy minister here and a parliamentary secretary, a lot of members have questions.
But, if the member for Carleton persists, as he has been doing, when a point of order is raised on the other side, and persists when the microphone is switched off, and pushes the button to override it and yell into the mike, that is absolutely inappropriate. I'll tell you that as chair, I'm not going to put up with that kind of performance any longer. If we have to suspend the meeting 10 times during a meeting, that'll be where we'll go, because I'm not going to put up with that performance anymore where a member constantly pushes the button to override the order that the chair is trying to impose.
We can have a debate whether the question should have been allowed; I'll grant him and you that. But when there's a point of order on the other side, which there was, and the member for Carleton wouldn't allow that point of order because he consistently pushed the microphone button, I said, “That's it, meeting adjourned.” But we will render a decision on that at a future date, because we'll have to check with some procedural people to see whether I was wrong or whether I was right.