Mr. Speaker, I rise today on a point of order following the Prime Minister's comments during question period yesterday on the results of the election of the Speaker.
Standing Order 3(6) states:
The Clerk of the House shall, once all members wishing to do so have deposited their ballot papers, empty the box and count the ballots and being satisfied as to the accuracy of the count, shall destroy the ballots together with all records of the number of ballots cast for each candidate and the Clerk of the House shall in no way divulge the number of ballots cast for any candidate.
In reference to the hon. member for Ottawa-Vanier, the Prime Minister stated yesterday, and I quote from page 8170 of Hansard :
-Mr. Speaker, that it was by two votes he did not become the Speaker. A lot of people thought we had two great candidates and he lost by only two votes.
In so doing the Prime Minister left the impression that he was in possession of information that is supposed to be secret. By making these comments the Prime Minister has called the whole process into question. I merely want to ensure that the rules of the House were adhered to and that the Standing Orders were not compromised.
I would therefore ask the Prime Minister if his comments were purely-