I thank the hon. member for St. Albert and the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.
The member for St. Albert quoted from Speaker Fraser's ruling, page 18381 in Hansard of August 1988. I would add to his quote the second part of that paragraph:
-the Chair must take a Minister's declaration at face value and cannot judge the quality of negotiations or of any proposals that may have been made. In this case I was not even asked to judge on the quality of the negotiations because there is a document that indicates the arrangement at least had been entered into with two of the parties in the House, albeit, not that of the government.
The Speaker, as the member for St. Albert will remember, ruled that the notice was in order.
There are other judgments which appear to go the same direction on the same basis. Speaker Fraser on March 29, 1990-