House of Commons Hansard #92 of the 35th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was promise.

Topics

Committee Of The WholeGovernment Orders

4:20 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

I will ask the clerk to count the members present.

There is certainly not a quorum. Call in the members.

And the bells having rung:

And the count having been taken:

Committee Of The WholeGovernment Orders

4:20 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

There are now 20 members in the House, it would appear.

Committee Of The WholeGovernment Orders

4:25 p.m.

Reform

Jim Abbott Reform Kootenay East, BC

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the member for Kingston and the Islands. I believe he will be the first person in the history of the House of Commons who will have come to the position of deputy speaker under closure. I think that is really something. He has been a very memorable member.

Committee Of The WholeGovernment Orders

4:25 p.m.

An hon. member

May he rest in peace.

Committee Of The WholeGovernment Orders

4:25 p.m.

Reform

Jim Abbott Reform Kootenay East, BC

May he rest in peace.

He has been a very memorable member. I think of him as constantly popping up with his Reform green book. While entertaining, nonetheless it has not been quite as entertaining as this whole process. He was one of the authors of the idea of the continuing effort to reform this archaic institution to create more independence in the Chair in an effort to reduce the level of partisanship.

We all agree that we have no difficulty with the qualifications of this member but there is a complete lack of understanding of the principle involved. I realize it is really difficult for the Liberals to understand principle but we had people from the other side of this House saying this whole thing of creating impartiality, of getting people from the opposition to be officials in the House, it was not a promise.

In reality it was contained in their pulp fiction, the appendix to their red book. To try to weasel out of this promise, which was a promise simply because they chose to include it in the appendix, I find is really very unfortunate and perhaps says something about their attitude toward the issue of integrity in government.

Over the weekend 1.4 million documents were distributed in newspapers. The document was called "Commitments are only as strong as our will to fulfil them". I do not know if these documents were all from the 1.4 million Canadians who are unemployed, but on the front of this document it was noted that this was a statement by the Prime Minister. I would like to read from this Liberal document:

There are no vague "philosophies" and empty promises in "Creating Opportunity". The Red Book is full of specific plans to improve our society, our economy and our collective strength. One of the reasons that Canadians so enthusiastically support the Red Book is because it was crafted after significant consultation with Canadians from every corner of our country. We asked what was important to you. We listened. And we're still listening. In turn, you have given [the Prime Minister] the most important mandate in the world: your trust. He and his government are fulfilling, and will continue to fulfil, the commitments you helped to create.

Let us take a look at the last couple of weeks and let us be very blunt. We are talking now about facts. I know Liberals do not like to talk about facts. When the Prime Minister was addressing young people in a high school in Manitoba he told a story that he sat on a corner on a chair with a homeless gentlemen. It rather piqued the interest of the reporters and they asked "who is this person, when did this happen and what is going on here?"

It was found that this story, taken to be true by these young people in Manitoba, was without basis in fact. The story that the Prime Minister had told these young people of Canada was a falsehood. He did not sit on corners with homeless people. He did not consult with homeless people.

The closest he could come was in the interim period when he had previously been elected and then re-elected when he happened to run into somebody on the street. That was the Prime Minister and his imaginary friend.

On the same trip this person we are supposed to trust was telling us that one of the great things he and his government had done was to move interest rates down from 14 per cent and 15 per cent. It depended on how much farther he went west how big the number got. He started at 13. Then it became 14 and then it became a 15 per cent interest rate that the Liberals were facing when they came into government. The difficulty is that the number was only 9.5 per cent, a minor discrepancy. This is the person Canada is supposed to trust.

"As a result of the 14, 15 and 16 per cent interest rates", he said, "we have saved the taxpayer $7,000 in interest payments". Then it was $8,000 in interest payments and by the time he got out west it was $9,000 in interest payments. In fact the number is $2,700, a little less than $9,000.

We are talking about integrity. We are talking about integrity of government and people who will stand to be counted and tell it like it is.

I am repeating only facts, which is important. I will quote the Prime Minister from television in Winnipeg: "It was a big gamble we took when we decided to have a detailed program like this. I didn't expect that everything will have been perfect, but we will have been well above 90 per cent by the time we will call an election, probably close to 100 per cent".

I guess what actually happened was-

Committee Of The WholeGovernment Orders

4:30 p.m.

Reform

Jay Hill Reform Prince George—Peace River, BC

It sounds like his imaginary friend.

Committee Of The WholeGovernment Orders

4:30 p.m.

Reform

Jim Abbott Reform Kootenay East, BC

His imaginary friend got the better of him again.

I guess the people over at the PMO who are so good at putting out distortions of truth decided that 90 per cent was a little too much. They said to the Prime Minister: "Why don't you go to the people on the Liberal convention weekend and use 78 per cent? Do not use 79. That sounds like we are fudging it. We don't really want to get down around 75 because then people will be talking about three-quarters. Why don't we choose 78 per cent?"

We did fundamentally the same thing. The Reform Party put out a score card and came in at 30 per cent. We said the Liberals had not addressed the issue or even come remotely close to solving the issue of interprovincial trade barriers.

What did the Liberals say? This is their brand new pulp fiction, a record of achievement. Now there is a joke. Page 18 of the document states that a Liberal government will be committed to the elimination of interprovincial trade barriers within Canada and will address the issue urgently, and they have a check mark.

We noted they had not even come remotely close to it but they put it in the red book. We are talking integrity. They clearly indicated that as far as they were concerned they had achieved the objective of doing away with interprovincial trade barriers.

Why was it on Monday morning, when I was in their policy session, the following National Liberal Women's Commission resolution passed? It read:

Be it resolved that the Liberal Party of Canada encourage the Government of Canada to commit itself, in all matters of internal trade, to facilitating removal of the number and complexity of impediments to interprovincial trade.

If, when they put out this pulp fiction on Thursday they had already done it, why was the National Liberal Women's Commission passing a resolution saying they should do it the next day?

I have another one by the Liberal Party of Canada, Ontario. It read:

Be it resolved that the Liberal Party of Canada request that the federal government pursue a comprehensive agreement to complete the Economic Union of Canada by introducing a constitutional provision stating that Canada is an Economic Union wherein goods, services, people, and capital can have full mobility within the entire nation".

What a great idea but they just did it the day before, did they not? They said so in their book. What is this? That was not good enough. The Liberal Party of Ontario passed another one. It read:

Be it resolved that the Liberal Party of Canada urges the federal government to negotiate with the provinces to ensure the portability of professional qualifications between provinces.

The Prime Minister, this person with the imaginary friend, had just finished telling us they had done it. Why did they put out this book when in fact they had not done it, to the extent they even passed resolutions to say they should do it?

Now the big whopper is "an agenda for jobs and growth". This government promised Canadians jobs, jobs, jobs. Is that not terrific? It was like the promise that we would have independence in the chair in this place by putting opposition members in the chair of this place. "Oh, gee, we are not going to do that". There is another broken promise.

What about jobs, jobs, jobs? I would have been just totally mortified if my caucus had done what the National Liberal Caucus did at the convention. Believe it or not, this is really something. They actually put in:

Whereas the twin forces of economic globalization and rapid technological change have resulted in the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs throughout all sectors of the labour market;

Whereas the rate of unemployment remains stubbornly high with too many people competing for too few jobs;

Whereas the young people, in particular-

I should parenthesize that they are 18 per cent unemployed.

Whereas the young people, in particular, are finding it increasingly difficult to obtain full time employment;

This is a resolution of the National Liberal Caucus. It is the most brilliant idea the Liberals have:

Be it resolved that the Liberal Party of Canada recommends that work sharing be promoted with employers and unions as part of the effort to redistribute working time-

That is the most brilliant idea the people on the other side of the House have come up with. Then they have the audacity to send out from the Prime Minister's office, at the expense of taxpayers, distortions about where the Reform Party is coming from and that somehow we do not have any new ideas.

We do have some ideas. For example, one distortion of truth was that our program would rob the poor to pay the rich. Let us take a look at exactly what the Reform Party would do. We would

increase the basic personal income tax exemption from $6,456 to $7,900, giving tax relief to every taxpayer.

We would increase the spousal amount from $5,380 also to $7,900 which would level the playing field for parents who choose to stay home to look after young children. It would help families meet their needs in a more demanding economy.

We would eliminate the 3 per cent and 5 per cent federal surtaxes introduced by their brother in the federal Tories as part of our commitment to simplify and flatten taxes.

We would cut the employers unemployment insurance premium by 28 per cent, thereby reducing the job killing payroll taxes.

We would extend the $3,000 to $5,000 child care deduction to all parents including those who care for their children at home.

It is a matter of coming up with new ideas. It is a matter of making sure the people at the bottom end of the scale are looked after first. That is what the Reform Party is about. In this instance a family of four with one income earner would see an immediate tax reduction of 89 per cent. There would be one million fewer taxpayers at the bottom end of the scale as a result of the initiatives of the Reform Party.

At the top end of the scale for a family of four with one income earner earning $100,000 the reduction would only be 3 per cent as opposed to 89 per cent at the bottom end.

And these people have the audacity to say we are robbing the poor to pay the rich. These people are robbing the poor to pay the rich. We will do a complete turnaround so that the people at the bottom end of the scale are the people who are the most advantaged. I just do not understand these people opposite at all.

As my colleague from Lisgar-Marquette noted, if the Liberals cannot keep the small promises, how in the world can they keep the big ones? Here we have an issue of honesty, integrity and moving forward in the impartiality of the running of the House and they cannot even do that. When the National Liberal Caucus has to resort to their very best idea of job sharing, give me a break.

We have some ideas. We would create jobs through smaller government. We would put an end to overspending and lower taxes. We would make government smaller by eliminating waste, duplication and red tape. In particular, if we take a look at the portfolio I am responsible for, we would take a look at why the heritage minister felt compelled to come up with a $20 million Canada Information Office. What an absolutely brilliant idea when every department and every ministry of the government has its very own information office.

In addition, there is also Inquiries Canada with a budget of $4 million. Why did we need this? Maybe we have a bit of a clue in the way in which the Liberals went about hiring the people for the office. It does not come under any rules and regulations with respect to the normal hiring practice of government. I wonder why. I wonder if maybe they may be choosing to hire exactly the people they want. I will bet there is an election coming and they want to have some people they will be able to hand pick at taxpayers' expense to bring into this office.

Committee Of The WholeGovernment Orders

4:40 p.m.

Reform

Jay Hill Reform Prince George—Peace River, BC

No, no.

Committee Of The WholeGovernment Orders

4:40 p.m.

Reform

Lee Morrison Reform Swift Current—Maple Creek—Assiniboia, SK

They wouldn't do that.

Committee Of The WholeGovernment Orders

4:40 p.m.

Reform

Jim Abbott Reform Kootenay East, BC

Let us take a look at this. What they have done in addition we will never know.

Committee Of The WholeGovernment Orders

4:40 p.m.

Reform

Lee Morrison Reform Swift Current—Maple Creek—Assiniboia, SK

Don't be so cynical.

Committee Of The WholeGovernment Orders

4:40 p.m.

Reform

Jim Abbott Reform Kootenay East, BC

What am I supposed to say when the Liberals turn around and under a cabinet order provide no information or details to anyone about how the funds are spent? The cabinet has closed, slammed and locked Canadians out of this $20 million enterprise. No one will ever know anything about what is going on.

We might have a clue about what is going on over there if we take a look at what the Prime Minister's office does with its research funds. It sends out Liberal propaganda to Liberal sympathizers that are absolute distortions of the truth about the Reform Party and has been caught at it.

Although we have had a degree of tongue in cheek in the way we have addressed the issue, we must also take a look at how solemn it is. It is very solemn because we have a government and a Prime Minister who are so arrogant and power hungry that they will virtually do anything to maintain power and control over information from the office I just named. They will do virtually anything in terms of what they say about people they are concerned about who have different or new ideas.

Why is it that we have a situation where we do not have a resolution to the so-called two founding nation problem or however they choose to describe it? We do not have resolution to the point where we almost lost the country a year ago.

For 30 or 35 years the Liberals and Tories have stumbled around with that portfolio, not getting anywhere and making the situation worse. Reform, or any other Canadian, can come along with a fresh new idea and say: "Why don't we try it a different way?" If we are unsuccessful in a particular direction maybe we should change direction. The minute we do that with the Liberals they immediately choose to throw out the mindless invective. They immediately choose to go into overdrive and say all the mean, nasty, negative, distorted statements they can make about their adversaries.

What the Reform Party is out to do, and we will do it in spite of the Liberals, is we are out to create an honest, open, frank, candid debate in this country about real issues, about real solutions, about getting things turned around so that the people of this country once again can see the future as they want it to be. We are turning it around so that we have the opportunities for our people, for the people of Canada.

What can I say? Again, the member who has been proposed for this function, fine, but the way in which he has been proposed and the way in which the Liberals once again have broken a solemn commitment is very sad.

Committee Of The WholeGovernment Orders

4:45 p.m.

Reform

Lee Morrison Reform Swift Current—Maple Creek—Assiniboia, SK

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I think the Liberals must be down in the market talking to their imaginary friends. I do not see a quorum.

Committee Of The WholeGovernment Orders

4:45 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

There clearly is not a quorum.

Call in the members.

And the bells having rung:

And the count having been taken:

Committee Of The WholeGovernment Orders

4:45 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

There are now 20 members in the House.

Committee Of The WholeGovernment Orders

4:45 p.m.

Liberal

Marlene Catterall Liberal Ottawa West, ON

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I heard the last speaker refer to the Prime Minister and accuse the Prime Minister of telling a falsehood to young people. Those were his precise words.

The traditions and the procedures of the House are quite clear. I am sure it is not necessary but I would refer the Speaker to citation 489 of Beauchesne's. He will note the lengthy list of examples of how it is unacceptable in the House to question the veracity of a member.

One cannot use the expressions: above the truth; attempted to misrepresent; deceive; falsehood; misleading; misled; dishonest insinuations; dishonest answers; fabricated; intentional deceit; misleading the public; not telling the truth; not the complete truth; wilfully misled; untrue statement. One certainly cannot use: false; fabrication; false representations; false statement; falsehood; falsify.

I would therefore ask the Speaker to rule-

Committee Of The WholeGovernment Orders

4:50 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

I thank the hon. member. The hon. member for Kootenay East has in fact left the Chamber. We will check the blues and if the situation is as the member indicated, the Chair will certainly make a ruling on it.

Is the House ready for the question?

Committee Of The WholeGovernment Orders

4:50 p.m.

Some hon. members

No.

Committee Of The WholeGovernment Orders

4:50 p.m.

Reform

Jay Hill Reform Prince George—Peace River, BC

Mr. Speaker, we are certainly not ready for the question.

I thank the hon. member opposite for making that intervention. I notice it is the first intervention that has been made for quite some time by hon. members opposite. Obviously they are having an exceedingly difficult time trying to justify this move by the government. Indeed, they do not wish to participate in the debate to try to defend the actions of their government.

Perhaps it would be interesting to recap what has brought us to this point on this issue. Clearly, there has been another broken Liberal promise.

We seem to have been subjected over the last day and a half to a number of allegations from across the way that the Reform Party of Canada is wasting taxpayers' money and wasting the time of the House of Commons. I see that the few hon. members who are left across the way are nodding their heads. They agree that we are wasting time.

What this is all about is a matter of principle. Unfortunately, there does not seem to be a lot of that in evidence on the other side of the House these days. In fact, I would submit that principles are in exceedingly short supply in the Liberal Party. The opinion across the way is that the Reform Party has a problem with principles, but we feel it is the Liberal Party of Canada which is constantly lacking in that department. Liberal members will not even get up to defend the position which they have taken on this issue.

Why are we in this situation in the House? Yesterday the government put a motion on the floor of the Chamber to appoint the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands to the vacant position of Deputy Chairman of Committees of the Whole. This was done despite the fact that the member himself was a co-author of a document some years ago when the Liberal Party of Canada was sitting on this side of the House. At that time four members of the Liberal Party drafted a document which became an appendix to the infamous red book. That book was the Liberal Party's platform which it took to the people of Canada during the 1993 election campaign.

The appendix was called "Reviving Parliamentary Democracy". It is certainly a grand title, something I think all Canadians believe we are in dire need of in this country, "Reviving Parliamentary Democracy: The Liberal Plan for House of Commons and Electoral Reform". Number 10 dealt with the independence of the Chair, in other words the independence of the Speaker in the House of Commons. It stated:

In order to enhance the independence of the Chair and in an effort to reduce the level of partisanship, when the Speaker is from the government party, two of the junior Chair officers should be from the opposition, so that the four presiding officer positions are shared equally by government and opposition.

It went on to say:

One of the most significant results of the McGrath round of procedural reforms was the decision that the Speaker should be elected by secret ballot by all members. This has gone a long way toward assuring members of the independence of the presiding officer.

The three deputy Speakers, however, remain in effect government appointees. As a consequence, when one of the junior officers is in the Chair, his or her independence and authority is less well established. Their authority would be greatly enhanced and the non-partisan nature of the Chair greatly augmented if the British practice of alternating the Chair positions between government and opposition were adopted. Thus, if the Speaker were from the government party, the Deputy Speaker would be from the opposition, the next officer from the government and so forth.

This is all quite admirable. Certainly all members of Parliament from all parties would agree that a procedure such as that should be instituted.

I note that in one part it is stated very clearly that the authority would be greatly enhanced if this procedure were adopted because deputy Speakers are not elected. It was the feeling of that committee of the Liberal Party of Canada that this type of process should be put in place. That is why it was added as an appendix to the red book. The Liberals ran on this issue. It was a promise they made in the days and weeks leading up to the 1993 election.

Earlier my colleague from Lisgar-Marquette spoke about what is a promise. He talked about the sanctity of marriage vows. He made a good case that it is one promise many Canadians believe is a promise that one simply does not break. The marriage vow of until death do us part means that couples stay together through thick and thin and through tough times. They work out their problems but they keep their promise. He quite eloquently made the case for that.

What constitutes the keeping of a promise? The member went on to say that there are many kinds of promises. Some are simply implied, some are spelled out, some are verbal and some are signed contracts. In other words, they are legally binding in the sense that one has signed one's name to the promise.

What constitutes the keeping of a promise? Simply put, in the case of government it has a very short time span in which to keep its promise. It is up to the government to display to the general public that when its members run for election either in a general election or a byelection that they will keep their word.

There is an old saying that a man is only as good as his word. That is something I was raised with. It is common knowledge in Peace River country where I come from. I heard that many times from my father when I was a youngster. I would submit that is a generic term which also applies to the other gender. We all are only as good and our credibility is only as good as our word. We have to keep that.

It reminds me of a promise that was made by a number of Liberals during the election but certainly none more so or more strongly or strenuously than the Deputy Prime Minister. The promise I am speaking of is the GST.

I get back to my point. What constitutes the keeping of a promise? Clearly the Deputy Prime Minister during the election campaign spoke many times that if they did not abolish, scrap or get rid of the GST she would resign. That is the promise that she made. Indeed finally through the pressure of the Reform Party of Canada and from the media and from the general public she was forced to honour that promise and resign.

I get back to what I was saying earlier. What constitutes the keeping of a promise? To my way of thinking, simply resigning and then saying "I'm going to run again" is hardly the keeping of a promise. Clearly what she implied when she said "I will resign if we do not scrap, kill, abolish the GST" was that she would quit, give up her seat.

I do not believe that the people of Canada believed that what she really meant was that she would just give it up until a byelection could be called at the cost of some $.5 million and then seek re-election to that same position. I do not believe that is keeping a promise.

A number of my colleagues have spoken quite eloquently about this subject. What the viewing public needs to understand is what is happening today and what are we really discussing here. Is it simply that the Reform Party is upset that the government intends to appoint the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands to one of the positions of deputy speaker of the House of Commons? Of course that is not the case.

I want to go on record as saying that I do not have any personal vendetta against the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands. That is not the case. I am certain that is not the case for any of my colleagues who have been speaking out. Many have reiterated during their remarks that this is not a case of attacking an individual or casting aspersions against an individual. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The reality is we believe a promise has been broken. Promises are very important, especially to this government. It has been said already today and indeed yesterday during the debate that this particular government and this particular Prime Minister have been going on and on at some length during the past, and certainly last weekend was an example of that during the love-in of the Liberal convention held here in Ottawa, about how many promises they have kept.

Clearly when a promise is as simple as this one is to keep, it is not a difficult promise to keep, the government could pick any opposition member. It does not have to be someone from the Reform Party. It could be anyone from the Bloc Quebecois or one of the independents to fill that position of deputy speaker. Then it would have lived up to its promise.

This particular member who represents Kingston and the Islands clearly would have lived up to the commitment that he made I believe to the people of Canada and to the electorate when he co-signed the document which was attached as an appendix to the Liberal red book.

Reformers believe that this debate is so very important. We are talking about integrity. We are talking about honesty. We are talking about credibility. We are talking about believeability.

From the red book in a chapter called "Governing with Integrity I quote directly the promise that was held out to Canadians before and during the 1993 election:

If government is to play a positive role in society, as it must, honesty and integrity in our political institutions must be restored.

The most important asset of government is the confidence it enjoys of the citizens to whom it is accountable. There is evidence today of considerable dissatisfaction with government and a steady erosion of confidence in the people and institutions of the public sector.

This erosion of confidence seems to have many causes: some have to do with the behaviour of certain elected politicians, others with an arrogant style of political leadership. The people are irritated with governments that do not consult them, or that disregard their views, or that try to conduct key parts of the public business behind closed doors.

I submit that part of this page out of the Liberal red book of campaign promises, "Creating Opportunity: The Liberal Plan for Canada", could have been written this afternoon.

It could be applied to the Liberal Party of Canada, to the existing government. We all know that it was written as a Liberal attack against the former Progressive Conservative government.

Lord knows it deserved to be chastized for the way it behaved over nine years, the way it betrayed Canada, the way it betrayed the promises it made to the Canadian people during two successive elections, 1984 and 1988.

It could have just as easily, I submit, have been written about the government we have in Canada today. I see that same arrogance that the Liberal Party was attacking in this document. I see that same arrogance very much in evidence around this place today.

I would like to go on in the time that I have remaining and talk about a specific promise that was made leading up to the election, another promise by the Liberal Party of Canada, one that I was personally made aware of during the election campaign. It impacted directly in some of the support that the Liberal Party got and some of the heat that the Reform Party of Canada took for being honest with the electorate.

This promise, like the promise of allowing for the appointment of alternating positions to the deputy speaker's position in the House of Commons, was contained in a side document to the red book. It is entitled "Food Security for Canadians and a Fair Return for Canadian Farmers". It is the Liberal agricultural policy proposals backgrounder dated May 1993.

This document under the subtitle "International Trade and Marketing: General Agreement on Tariffs and Trades" states: "The nature of agricultural production, trade and the global forces of change make it inevitable that farm and trade policies will have to be altered. Canada must make use of the GATT negotiations to aggressively defend and clarify article XI to maintain our supply managed programs, since the ongoing GATT negotiations provide an opportunity to make these changes in a multilateral framework of commitments and rules".

That sounded very good: "aggressively defend and clarify article XI".

That is what the Liberal Party of Canada and its candidates ran on in the 1993 election. I am sure all my colleagues in the Reform Party remember that. Certainly any Reformers who had dairy farms in their riding remember it. Reform was honest with dairy farmers, the supply managed sectors of agriculture, in what they were facing, what was coming down the pipe and Reform took the heat for that. We took the heat in all-candidates forums, on radio open line shows, but Reform stuck by what we said because we felt we had to be honest with Canadians during and after an election.

By the time the Liberals recognized what we were saying about this all along-

Committee Of The WholeGovernment Orders

5:10 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

You have one minute.

Committee Of The WholeGovernment Orders

5:10 p.m.

Reform

Jay Hill Reform Prince George—Peace River, BC

One minute. Boy, times flies when you are trying to make real points.

The promise to defend to the death article XI of the GATT, by the time the Liberal Party understood that the Reform was right, that this was going to be gone, it had lost it as a bargaining chip.

Committee Of The WholeGovernment Orders

5:10 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

The member's time has expired. Is the House ready for the question?

Committee Of The WholeGovernment Orders

5:10 p.m.

Reform

Jay Hill Reform Prince George—Peace River, BC

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. Under the present House rules, Standing Order 57, I have read carefully through the closure notice and I did not notice anything specifically in that rule that does not allow for a 10 minute questions and comments portion following 20 minutes speeches.

Could the Chair clarify Standing Order 57 and why we are not having any questions and comments?

Committee Of The WholeGovernment Orders

5:10 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

The hon. member was kind enough to indicate to the Chair his concern in this regard earlier and the answer is as follows. Standing Order 57 states there will be 20 minute speeches only during the period of closure, the debate we are in now.

Standing Order 43 states that unless provided otherwise there will be 20 minute speeches plus question and answer.

I agree with the member that it would have been better if somebody had said under Standing Order 57 that there will not be questions and answers, but it is by implication. In a commentary under Standing Order 43 it is indicated there are not questions and answers under closure debate.

There is of course the availability of unanimous consent. If the member wishes to ask for unanimous consent that there be questions and answers during this closure debate the Chair would be happy to entertain that motion.

Committee Of The WholeGovernment Orders

5:10 p.m.

Reform

Jay Hill Reform Prince George—Peace River, BC

Mr. Speaker, I will decline from so moving because I strongly suspect the Liberals will not allow it.