Debates of Sept. 27th, 1995

Privilege

[Herb Gray, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Solicitor General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I put on the record of the House what the whip for the government was referring to in section 409 of Beauchesne's, which reads in part:

In 1975, the Speaker expressed some general principles in order to clarify the regulations and restrict the negative qualifications which traditionally have guided the question period.

Subsection 7:

A question must adhere to the proprieties of the House in terms of inferences, imputing motives or casting aspersions upon persons within the House or out of it.

The hon. member for Calgary Southeast did exactly what is not supposed to be done according to these guidelines put on the record by one of your distinguished predecessors, Mr. Speaker. The hon. member cannot get away with an improper statement by putting it in an interrogatory fashion, and therefore she should withdraw.

[The Speaker]

Colleagues, during question period, as you have seen in the last little while, we tend to be using stronger and stronger words in putting questions but also in giving answers.

Here is what we have, I believe. We have an hon. member who, when she stood in her place, was cautioned about the language she was using in her question. I permitted the question to stand with that caution and the hon. minister answered the first question.

In my view, the second question was clearly out of order and I ruled it as such by moving ahead and not letting the minister answer.

Now this is being raised as a point of privilege. One member has asked another member to withdraw the statement. The other member has replied that she does not feel this particular statement was imputing motives.

As the Speaker, it would seem to me that the more we permit ourselves to go down this road and not frame the questions in such a way that they can be related to the administrative responsibilities of individuals, we are getting ourselves into a quagmire.

I wish there were an easy way out of this. I do not believe and I ruled that this is not a question of privilege. However, in the name of civility and in the name of good conduct in this House, may I appeal to the member for Calgary Southeast to reconsider. Although I do not believe there was any intention but even if the words carried the impugning of motives, I wonder if the hon. member might reconsider and withdraw the statements as they were made.

The hon. member for Calgary Southeast.

[Jan Brown, Reform, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, may I ask a question of you for clarification?

[Some hon. members]

No.

[Some hon. members]

Withdraw.

[The Speaker]

I have clearly ruled that there is not a point of privilege. That is my decision. However, again I appeal to the hon. member, although this question may or may not be allowed, I of course heard what the member said. Once again, in order that this House might carry out its responsibilities in a civilized manner on all sides, I would urge and ask the hon. member if she would consider withdrawing her statements or any impugning of motive. Would the hon. member consider that?

[Jan Brown, Reform, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, with all due respect to you, because this is not a point of privilege I will not withdraw nor will I retract any of my statements.

[The Speaker]

My colleagues, I have made a ruling on a point of privilege and that ruling will stand. I very much regret that the hon. member has not withdrawn but I am going to let the matter rest there.

I will go on to another point. If there is another point of order exclusive of this, I will hear it. For now, I would like this point to rest.

Points Of Order

[Ray Speaker, Reform, Lethbridge]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order under sections 485 and 486 of Beauchesne's with regard to unparliamentary language and also language that reflects on members in this assembly.

I heard very clearly comments of the member for Willowdale that called the member for Calgary Southeast a slimeball not only once but twice and I think even a third time across the floor of the House.

There was a lot of concern in this House by the hon. member for Burlington concerning reflections on whether a person is a male or female. This type of comment to a male would have one type of inference but to a female, it certainly has another kind of inference which I will not accept. I ask that it be withdrawn and that that member be dealt with.

[The Speaker]

I must say that your Speaker did not hear these words and I do not know if they are in Hansard . We can have a look.

Because an hon. member was named in this House and was named directly I would ask the hon. member for Willowdale if he has something to add to this point of order.

[Jim Peterson, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am guilty and I withdraw. I ask your advice as to what other word might express better my utter repugnance for this type of question in our House of Commons.

[The Speaker]

May I ask the hon. member for Willowdale this. I did not hear all of the end of it and I do not really want to hear it. Would the hon. member please just stand and withdraw? He said he was guilty. Would he withdraw the statement, just the statement.

[Jim Peterson, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Absolutely, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.

[Herb Gray, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Solicitor General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, in light of the ruling you just made with regard to the words of the hon. member for Willowdale, I would like to draw your attention to citation 484 of Beauchesne's which reads in part as follows:

(3) In the House of Commons a Member will not be permitted by the Speaker to indulge in any reflections of the House itself as a political institution; or to impute to any Member or Members unworthy motives for their actions in a particular case-

Mr. Speaker, in light of this citation and in light of the ruling you just made with regard to the language used by the hon. member for Willowdale, I respectfully raise as a point of order a request that you apply the same principle to the question asked by the hon. member for Calgary Southeast which in effect involves an unworthy aspersion on a member of this House.

If it is fair for the hon. member to be requested to withdraw and for the hon. member to comply, as he did with the request to withdraw the word he used, and I am referring to the hon. member for Willowdale, I respectfully submit it is equally fair for a request to be made and for the hon. member for Calgary Southeast in the same spirit of conciliation and goodwill to withdraw her remarks.

[The Speaker]

I had asked earlier, with all respect to the hon. leader of the government and the House, that it was an unfortunate situation that occurred in the House.

I have made a ruling on it and I will stay by the ruling. Your Speaker tries as much as possible in the course of question period to hear from all sides. Although I have ruled, I permitted the House leader to go on.

If in some way the House could draw itself away from the type of strong language that we have been using I think the House would be better served on all sides.

For now I would like to close this matter of the member for Calgary Southeast.

I have another point of order, the hon. whip of the Reform Party.

[Bob Ringma, Reform, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, you may be relieved to know this is a point of order on a different subject. You may not be too relieved.

The point of order is under Beauchesne's citation 317(2) which calls for an interpretation of the rules of procedures to be decided on by the Speaker.

The rule in question is Beauchesne's citation 765(3) which specifies that membership in committees is in the same proportion to membership of political parties in this House. Under this the Bloc Quebecois and Reform should each have three members on the public affairs committee.

I hasten to add that I am not seeking the Speaker's intercession on a matter rising in committee which would be contrary to Beauchesne's citation 168(7). What I am seeking is for the Speaker to uphold the rules of this House, specifically Beauchesne's citation 765(3). If others are allowed to ignore the rules or put an erroneous interpretation on them, which is the case here, then it makes a mockery of Beauchesne's and a mockery of this House.

I tried without success to get the two other whips and the committee on procedure and House affairs to act on Beauchesne's citation 765(3). The stand taken by both is that the chair of the public accounts committee constitutes a separate committee position. Therefore the Bloc Quebecois should have four positions including the chair as opposed to the Reform's three.

We contend that this is an erroneous assumption as Beauchesne's 781 calls only for the chair to go to the opposition, not the official opposition. We would also cite Standing Order 106(2) which is silent on who fills the chair.

Since I have been unable to redress this grievance in committee or with the whips, I ask for the Speaker to uphold the rules of the House, specifically Beauchesne's 765(3), perhaps by using Beauchesne's 764 to communicate with the committee.

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Speaker, at the beginning of my colleague's remarks he referred to citation 317 of Beauchesne's to plead for the Speaker's intervention in the case. I should remind the Speaker that the reference to citation 317 was perhaps selective and should remind the Speaker of what it says. Citation 317(2) states:

A question of order concerns the interpretation to be put upon the rules of procedure and is a matter for the Speaker or, in a committee, for the Chairman to determine.

In other words, a reading of the complete citation tells the Speaker that this is an issue to be raised at the committee and not in the House.

In reference to the issue at hand, the membership of the committees in question, the issue was brought to the attention of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs with the hon. member pleading the case that there should be an additional member of his particular political party on the Standing Committee on Public Accounts.

The Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs in its wisdom decided that it had been customary and agreed at the beginning of this Parliament that the party which holds the chairmanship of the particular committee loses a member able to participate in the debate because the chairman customarily, as the Speaker knows more than anyone else in the House, does not participate too frequently in the debates. That was agreed to at the beginning of this Parliament, at the beginning of the previous Parliament and the one before it.

In each one of those prior Parliaments and in the present one the official opposition, which traditionally chairs the public accounts committee, has an additional member to compensate for the fact that it loses one member in the debate.

Finally the argument was made by myself at the procedure and House affairs committee that if we add another member from another party to the public accounts committee, we disturb the whole balance within the committee. We then have to add two Liberal members to the committee to achieve the balance we must start off with under the rule invoked by the hon. member in question.

[Gilles Duceppe, Bloc, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will not quote Beauchesne because one can use different citations to make different points. One thing is for sure, when we conducted negotiations at the start of this Parliament two years ago and two whips ago for the Reform Party, which is now on its third whip-the government whip was not there at the time but you were-the three whips of the day, including myself, submitted various proposals on the right to speak, on question period, on members' statements and on committee membership. At that time, the Bloc Quebecois even offered five vice-chairmanships to the third party, which refused them because they were not to their liking.

They have now changed their minds. Fine by me but there were nonetheless recorded divisions in each committee. Under British parliamentary tradition, a specific role is reserved for the official opposition. We are aware of that. I would point out to the hon. member from the third party that the Quebec legislature, one of the oldest in the world, was operating as early as 1791. It is one of the oldest parliaments in the world, also under British parliamentary rules.

We understood that we were the second party because we had the second highest number of members in this House.

If the hon. member for Beaver River could stop talking, I could conclude my remarks.

Mr. Speaker, that is what we understood at the time. Had we been the third party, we would have settled the matter very quickly by following the practices of the previous Parliament. I think this goes without saying. It was often said at the beginning that the Bloc Quebecois was here to hinder proceedings. On the contrary, it is the third party, the Reform Party, that hinders the proceedings of this House with points of order, by calling into question the way committees operate. I thought that everything was clear. That party is the third party. If the situation ever changes, things will be

different. It may become the fourth party but until then it is still the third party.

In the meantime, let us apply existing rules and debate the real issues-because there are important problems in both Canada and Quebec-instead of fighting on matters that were rejected by that party two years and two whips ago.

[Diane Ablonczy, Reform, Calgary North, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to clarify something in this debate since I was the whip for the Reform Party at the time mentioned by the whip for the Bloc.

I had understood that negotiations and exploration of issues between whips were confidential. Now we have the whip for the Bloc accusing and misrepresenting what those negotiations actually did. I object to that. That is not the kind of behaviour one would expect from someone of goodwill.

Mr. Speaker, as you are aware because you were part of the discussions, the talk about chairmanships and vice-chairmanships of committees hinged around our contention that the Bloc was getting a disproportionate share of air time on question period. In order to quiet down those objections the Bloc made this offer of the vice-chairmanships of some of the minor committees.

In our view the air time on question period and the proportion of questions asked should not be mixed up with vice-chairmanships of committees. That was our objection at the time. It remains our objection. It certainly should not be used to suggest that we are not interested in vice-chairmanships of committees. We just do not think those kinds of tradeoffs are appropriate.

We have a situation in the House where there are two opposition parties, one of which is wanting to break up the country and one of which wants to get on with the national agenda. We think there should be fairness and parity at the very least in this situation, and that is what we are asking for in this point of order.

[The Speaker]

We are getting into a rather long debate. Permit me to make these comments.

The membership, as we all know, is struck by the House affairs committee pursuant to Standing Order 104(1) and it becomes a decision of the House. Citation 781 of Beauchesne's is a reference to a custom or a practice which has developed over time. It is the House that ultimately decides and that order should stand until the House decides otherwise.

Members are asking the Speaker to make a decision which would virtually override the decision made by the House. I do not believe that the Speaker is empowered to do that. The Speaker is a servant of the House.

Therefore, with all due respect, I believe that this should be left to the House affairs committee because it has been empowered to appoint the membership pursuant to Standing Order 104(1). That is where I would like the particular matter to be solved.

[Jim Silye, Reform, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I just want to know, on a point of order, if the barbeque is still on tonight.

[The Speaker]

The response is yes, and you are going to have roasted Speaker.

Order In Council Appointments

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to table in this House today, in both official languages, a number of Order in Council appointments which were made recently by the government.

Pursuant to the provisions of Standing Order 110(1), these are deemed referred to the appropriate standing committees, a list of which is attached.

Government Response To Petitions

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8) I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's response to 22 petitions.

Committees Of The House

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I move:

That the following member be added to the list of associate members of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs: Darrel Stinson.