Mr. Speaker, yesterday afternoon shortly after question period and pursuant to an all-party agreement duly signed by all whips of the House, a meeting was held to proceed with the election of officers of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts. As I said, there was an agreement signed by all whips to the effect that the committee along with other committees would meet at previously agreed to hours and days.
Contrary to the agreement, one group of individuals chose not to allow the votes to proceed on the election of the chair and decided to filibuster the committee for whatever reason.
That was confirmed in an informal conversation I had with members of that party, at which point we were forced to adjourn the meeting by causing it to lose its quorum.
At 3.30 this afternoon we will once again attempt to elect officers pursuant to the agreement made. If that fails, we will attempt to do it again until we succeed in having not only the order made by the House some time ago on the repartition of members by party but also the all-party agreement made by the whips.
We intend to do our part as a government to ensure the standing orders are adhered to. Hopefully members of the third party will co-operate today, unlike what happened yesterday.