Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to see you in the Chair, because you were present yesterday.
I would like a clarification regarding what happened during debate on the Reform Party's amendment to the amendment with respect to Bill C-42. As you will recall, it was during the period for questions and comments and I still had time remaining when the government whip presented a motion to extend the sitting, pursuant to Standing Order 26.
You entertained the motion, Mr. Speaker, and a number of things then happened. One was that you deemed that a motion to adjourn the House had been moved pursuant to Standing Order 38.
You then asked if the House was ready for the question, on what it was not clear. There were cries of "question" from both sides and you set the vote in motion. You will recall that I hurried over to the Table and, at the first opportunity available to me, raised a point of order.
My point of order concerned the fact that the government whip's motion to extend the sitting was out of order. I will read the last paragraph only of the Speaker's ruling on this motion, in the hope that this will enlighten the Chair.
In view of the fact that the matter was a procedural motion and that it was proposed at a time contrary to the Standing Orders, the Chair is of the view that the motion is indeed out of order and has not been adopted.
My question today is whether, if we step back and you have immediately declared the government's motion out of order, I would still be in the period for questions and comments. Or whether, given my brilliant answers, for no one else had any questions to ask me, you would have called for debate to resume and not gone on to the vote.
I therefore think that everything that occurred between the time the government whip's motion was ruled out of order and the time that the Chair confirmed the motion out of order was illegal. Accordingly, the vote on the Reform Party's amendment to the amendment concerning Bill C-42 is illegal and should never have been held.
I would like you, Mr. Speaker, to shed some light on this, for I believe that the custom of the House would have dictated that, following the government motion, you should have said very clearly-and this should have been recorded in Hansard , which it was not-questions and comments'' orresuming debate''. You did not do so, probably through omission, or because government members were speaking very loudly and were in a hurry to vote in order to gag us.
Mr. Speaker, I ask you to rule on this question.