Debates of March 12th, 1996

Privilege

[The Speaker]

I have received notice of a question of privilege from the hon. member for Okanagan-Similkameen-Merritt.

[Jim Hart, Reform, Okanagan—Similkameen—Merritt, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege with regard to the actions of a member of the House which I believe constitute a contempt of Parliament.

I cite Joseph Maingot's Parliamentary Privilege in Canada , page 210:

In the sense that the House may discipline members for improper conduct, the practice relating to taking up the conduct of members is a matter of privilege.

Beauchesne's sixth edition citation 50 states:

In any case where the propriety of a Member's actions is brought into question, a specific charge must be made.

Page 206 of Maingot's Parliamentary Privilege in Canada states:

The conduct of a member may only be discussed in the House of Commons by way of a substantive or a distinct motion, i.e. a self-contained proposal submitted for the approval of the House and drafted in such a way as to be capable of expressing a decision to the House.

Mr. Speaker, I have a specific charge and a substantive motion. I will submit it to you to determine whether it should be given privilege:

Whereas the member for Charlesbourg, acting as the defence critic for the Bloc Quebecois and supported by the then Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, released a communiqué on the letterhead of the office of the leader of the official opposition on October 26, 1995 before the referendum in Quebec inviting all francophone members of the Canadian Armed Forces to join the Quebec military in the event of a "yes" vote supporting separation from Canada;

That in the opinion of this House, this action by the hon. member for Charlesbourg and the then leader of the official opposition should be viewed as seditious and offensive to this House and constitutes a contempt of Parliament; and consequently, the House refer the matter to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs for examination.

Beauchesne's sixth edition citation 28 refers to the Speaker's ruling from June 19, 1959:

-it is clear that many acts which might offend against the law or the moral sense of the community do not involve a Member's capacity to serve the people who have chosen him or her as their representative nor are they contrary to the usage nor derogatory to the dignity of the House of Commons. Members of the House of Commons, like all other citizens, have the right to be regarded as innocent until they are found guilty, and like other citizens they must be charged before they are obliged to stand trial in the courts. Parliament is a court with respect to its own privileges and the dignity and the privileges of its Members.

The member for Charlesbourg has not denied sending the communiqué. This is a matter of fact. It is not something we have to prove. It is prima facie. The question to be answered is whether the member is guilty of offending Parliament. In the opinion of the House is the hon. member for Charlesbourg guilty of sedition?

This issue is being debated in the media and in the public. It is not going away. Many of us have received letters, faxes and phone calls concerning this matter. Canadians from coast to coast to coast have been contacting me as the Reform Party's defence critic objecting to the action taken by the separatist party in the House.

Retired Major-General Lewis MacKenzie recently told Diane Francis, the editor of the Financial Post : ``Only in Canada could someone get away with something like that. In some countries people would be in jail. In Canada the attitude is ignore it, it will go away, there are more important issues''.

I repeat that in June of 1959 the then Speaker of the House pointed out that Parliament is a court with respect to its own privileges and dignity.

Beauchesne's sixth edition citation 46 states clearly:

The House has, on occasion, examined the activities of Members to establish if they were fit to hold their seats.

We have the right and the duty to examine these activities of members. I am not recommending that we do this on a regular

basis. However, a case such as the present one warrants our examination. In the present case we have a member of Parliament encouraging members of the Canadian Armed Forces to choose sides on the secession debate. This should be examined by the House.

Page 188 of Maingot's states:

A prima facie case of privilege in the parliamentary sense is one where the evidence on its face as outlined by the member is sufficiently strong for the House to be asked to send it to a committee to investigate whether the privileges of the House have been breached or a contempt has occurred and report to the House.

The evidence here is black and white. It is in the form of a communiqué the hon. member sent to the military.

With respect to whether this constitutes a contempt of Parliament, Erskine May's 21st edition at page 115 states that an offence of contempt:

-may be treated as a contempt even though there is no precedent of the offence. It is therefore impossible to list every act which might be considered to amount to contempt, the power to punish for such an offence being of its nature discretionary.

Maingot's, page 191:

While privilege may be codified, contempt may not-there is no closed list of classes of offences punishable as contempts of Parliament.

On October 29, 1980 a Speaker of the House said:

The dimension of contempt of Parliament is such that the House will not be constrained in finding a breach of privilege of its Members or of the House. This is precisely the reason that, while our privileges are defined, contempt of the House has no limits.

Mr. Speaker, if contempt has no limits, if there need not be a precedent for the offence, if contempt cannot be codified and if the House shall not be constrained in finding a contempt of Parliament, how can you do anything else but allow the members of the House the opportunity to decide if the actions of the hon. member for Charlesbourg are offensive and constitute a contempt? How can you decide this matter offends us or not? The evidence is more than sufficiently strong. The evidence is conclusive. The member sent the communiqué. We must therefore go to the next step. We must determine by due process in our opinion the member's innocence or guilt.

I would like to table the evidence in this case, which is the communiqué dated October 26, 1995 from the office of the official opposition.

Mr. Speaker, I ask that you find this matter to be a prima facie question of privilege. I believe that this matter should be reviewed to determine whether or not the dignity of the House has been violated by the hon. member's actions.

[The Speaker]

My colleagues, on your behalf I do take this as a very serious situation. It is probably one of the more serious situations that I as your Speaker have been confronted with since I was chosen as your Speaker.

We do have on the floor a specific charge of one member to another member. Before I declare whether or not this is a prima facie case, I would make a passing comment.

This communiqué is dated October 26, 1995. I mention that because although contempt can stand by itself, it comes under the aegis of privilege. In privilege members are admonished and encouraged to bring up such a matter at the earliest possible moment. I mention that only to put this matter into perspective.

I will now recognize the House leader of the Bloc Quebecois.

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

Mr. Speaker, first of all I would like to point out that there was no unanimous consent for tabling the document referred to my colleague, and it is not consented to. Second, the crux of the problem is that the member for Charlesbourg did indeed contact members of the Armed Forces in this letter in order to indicate to them that-I have the text here-if the yes side won in the October 30 referendum, the rights, salary levels and ranks of Quebec members of the Canadian Armed Forces would be recognized by the Government of Quebec which would have its own armed forces, like any other country, although obviously of limited size.

The reason this came up is that, during the referendum campaign, the federalists referred to precisely that matter, saying "People will be losing their jobs, losing their jobs because they are Quebecers and Quebec will become a sovereign country. And either there will be no armed forces in a sovereign Quebec or Canada will refuse to keep citizens of Quebec on as members of its armed forces". If one camp is entitled to discuss such matters, there are no grounds here for accusing the other of sedition, of rallying people against Canada or the Canadian Armed Forces. This was merely a response to arguments-

[Rex Crawford, Liberal, Kent, ON]

Bull!

[An hon. member]

Oh, the Liberals.

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

I imagine some of the Liberals are Reformers without knowing it, considering their attitudes, behaviours, ideas.

I see this as just part of a political debate, nothing to do with contempt of Parliament or calls to sedition. All it represents is asking a question: What will happen if sovereignty is declared by the people of Quebec?

Some people on one of the sides were examining various scenarios and were entitled to do so, to voice their opinion, to form hypotheses. Those of us on the other side feel equally entitled.

The letter in question was not in the least against the law. Not in the least.

[Michel Gauthier, Bloc, Roberval, QC]

They are quick to yell "treason".

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

Exactly, the Leader of the Opposition says they are quick to yell "treason". And they are quick to do other things also. This certainly does not reflect any serious intent in this House. I feel this Parliament ought to be examining fundamental problems, and giving up proposing populist rabble rousing solutions, the stock in trade of the Reform Party.

I would submit, Mr. Speaker, that there are no grounds for a question of privilege and that the motion must be rejected, not only because they have become aware of this letter just today. I imagine they are following the advice of one of their gurus, Diane Francis of the Financial Post, which speaks volumes, when one has some knowledge of the individual in question.

There is nothing serious in any of this. Mr. Speaker, I realize you are faced with a serious situation, but the serious nature of the situation is not because they have anything serious to say. It is altogether different. Sometimes a serious problem arises because of some people's foolish behaviour. This is a clear example of foolish behaviour.

Mr.Speaker, I call on you to reject any claim to a question of privilege.

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

Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt the question you will have to deal with is serious. I am sure you will deal with it in a very serious manner as you always do.

Mr. Speaker, I believe you will have to consider mainly what constitutes privilege as being defined in citation 24 of Beauchesne which reads in part:

Parliamentary privilege is the sum of the peculiar rights enjoyed by each House collectively as a constituent part of the High Court of Parliament, and by Members of each House individually, without which they could not discharge their functions and which exceed those possessed by other bodies of individuals.

In that regard Mr. Speaker will have to judge whether the action in question as alleged today constitutes an act which prevents other members from conducting their duties as defined in the definition of privilege we have before us.

The second thing Mr. Speaker might want to consider is in relation to the accusation made, whether the accusation was delayed or whether it was brought forward to the House at the earliest opportunity and given the gravity, whether the delay is justified under the circumstance. Mr. Speaker will have to decide on all those things.

Mr. Speaker will have to rule on the importance of the issue itself.

In a related matter, I ask Mr. Speaker to look at the issue of illegality which was raised today. I believe that one is outside the jurisdiction of Parliament. In addition and as an aside to the alleged illegality there is the issue of whether or not the action in question was unparliamentary and whether the issue was inappropriate for a member of Parliament to engage in. If that action were to be inappropriate, was it sufficiently inappropriate to deem an action by the Speaker and deem it to be a prima facie case of privilege?

There are actions from time to time that are inappropriate but Mr. Speaker rules that they may not necessarily be of such importance as to deem them to be prima facie cases of privilege. On the other hand, other accusations meet that test and have been deemed to be so by the Speaker and have been referred to the parliamentary committee.

The committee undertakes the second step of determining whether the prima facie case of privilege constitutes a true case of privilege as determined by peers of the House, members of Parliament sitting on the parliamentary committee on procedure, privilege and election.

The committee over recent years has seldom exercised its role in regard to privilege as it generally deals with issues involving procedure, amending our rules, and elections as was done recently in terms of electoral redistribution and so on. Nevertheless that residual power does belong to that committee, once having had referred to it by Mr. Speaker a prima facie case of privilege.

I believe those are the issues Mr. Speaker will have to address in making his determination. Then Mr. Speaker will bring that prima facie ruling back to the House for the House to refer the matter if it is deemed necessary to the appropriate committee.

[Jim Hart, Reform, Okanagan—Similkameen—Merritt, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the point was raised whether or not this matter came to the attention of the House at the earliest possible convenience.

I would like to give the House my assurance that I brought this matter forward at the earliest possible convenience. The Speaker knows that the House was prorogued for some 10 weeks. That was not the fault of this party or myself. It took some time for the research to be done. I know the Speaker will take the time to read the blues and he will see we have quoted from Erskine May, Maingot and also parliamentary privileges from Beauchesne's as pointed out by the Liberal whip. There was a tremendous amount of research. This is a complex issue.

I want to assure members of the House that it is in the purview of the powers we have in the House of Commons to determine whether these actions of the member were in fact a contempt of this place. We ourselves must determine that. That is why I have brought this forward today.

The main purpose of my effort is to draw the line on what is unacceptable behaviour with respect to trying to get members of the Canadian Armed Forces to take sides in the secession issue. That is the purpose of this motion: to draw the line and say what is acceptable and what is unacceptable in the eyes of this House.

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

I have three short comments to make, Mr. Speaker. First of all, regarding Reform's claim that they did not have the time to raise this question of privilege because of prorogation, I should point out that the referendum was held on October 30. Between the months of October and February, we were here for two whole months back in November and December. At least we were. I do not know where they were, but they certainly had enough time to raise the question.

Second, since my colleague argued that members of the military were asked to participate in an act of secession, I should remind you that they were sounded out because they had the right to vote, like any other citizen of Quebec. There are not two separate votes, one for members of the military and one for other citizens. Third, they wanted to know what would happen to them just like all federal public servants, to whom the Bloc Quebecois and the whole sovereignist movement had explained what they could expect after a yes vote in the referendum.

We feel that public servants working for the departments of labour, agriculture or human resources development are just as important as their defence colleagues and vice versa. We had a duty to answer their questions and not to leave it entirely to federalists, who were anticipating the worst and saying that sovereignists would not meet any of their commitments.

The document clearly specifies that all soldiers wanting to would be invited to transfer to Quebec's armed forces in the event of a yes vote. I went to enough meetings and I even saw television programs making it clear that Quebec soldiers would have the choice of staying in the Canadian Forces or switching to Quebec's armed forces.

I know that Reform members were against Quebec soldiers' being allowed to stay in the Canadian Forces. So today we hear two different tunes.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as many of my colleagues on all sides of the House have done, we had taken note of the action of the member opposite at about the time of the referendum.

I want to make two or three points that I think might be helpful to you, Mr. Speaker. First, we have already made an attempt to distinguish the functions of the House of Commons from the functions of the ordinary courts of law. Most of the material facts lying in the background I would have thought would have been disposed of by those public authorities whose job it is to look at these things.

In dealing with the background facts one notes that it is an arguable counselling of a member of the armed forces which has taken place contrary to the National Defence Act. One notes that it is arguably a seditious act which has taken place, being a subversion of the federal sovereignty tending to public disorder or a disorder. It is arguable that that outcome could have occurred.

One fact should be taken note of, and I am responding to the remarks of the House leader of the Bloc Quebecois. It was fairly clear to me as a member of Parliament that in the event there had been a majority yes vote in the province of Quebec, that would not by itself have created the Quebec national sovereignty that has been discussed here. Even in the statute, as I understand it, in the province of Quebec there was a significant material lag time between the result of a referendum and any decision on sovereignty or secession.

The leader of the Bloc Quebecois has attempted to describe what his colleague has done as some kind of a quasi-job creation program for orphaned members of the Canadian Armed Forces. I suggest that as a respectful member I cannot accept that and I respectfully suggest that you, Mr. Speaker, should not either.

I believe there has been a substantial lapse of time involved. In addition to the reasons put forward by the member moving the motion, the House was prorogued for a period of time and adjourned for a period of time. There was also a period of time when the public authorities that I mentioned earlier were looking at this with reference to the Criminal Code and the National Defence Act. They, in their good judgment, have decided not to proceed to deal with those background underlying facts by laying any charges.

At the end of the day you, Mr. Speaker, are being asked to take note of the actions of a member who has used the House of Commons facilities and stationery in taking action which may bring the House into disrepute and may involve the House in some prima facie illegality either in relation to the Criminal Code or to the National Defence Act.

Mr. Speaker, it is not an easy decision for you. I go back to my opening remarks when I said that I tend to believe this is a matter that should be dealt with, for the most part, by the ordinary courts and not by the court of Parliament.

[John Nunziata, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to make a very brief submission with respect to this matter.

To all intents and purposes this is a question of the rule of law and respect for the rule of law. Because a member of Parliament is alleged to have breached the Criminal Code, the issue becomes, as well as the other issues, whether or not members of Parliament should be above the rule of law.

My recollection is that this matter has not been considered by either the Attorney General for the province of Ontario or his counterpart in the province in Quebec. There are two issues here; one with respect to a breach of the Criminal Code of Canada and the other with respect to the matter raised by the hon. member, a breach of the privileges of the House.

Surely, Mr. Speaker, you would agree that the first is the more important issue, whether or not the Criminal Code of Canada has been breached with respect to the laws of sedition. It is clear that there is a general reluctance on the part of authority, whether it is here in Ottawa or at the provincial attorneys general level, to pursue this issue because of the political consequences of a prosecution.

I do not believe that Parliament or the attorneys general of Quebec or Ontario should not prosecute because of potential political consequences. You either have a criminal law to which all the citizens of the country are subjected or you do not. In order for there to be respect for the rule of law there has to be a perception that nobody is above it, not even members of Parliament and not even judges.

I would recommend or urge you, Mr. Speaker, not to dismiss this matter on the basis of a technicality which is whether or not the matter has been brought to the attention of Parliament at the earliest opportunity. I think that would be a cop out and would be seen as summarily dealing with a matter of grave national importance.

I would urge you, Mr. Speaker, to refer the matter to the appropriate committee of the House so that the committee will be charged with investigating all aspects of this matter. That committee, in my respectful submission, should be urging the attorney general for the province of Ontario and the attorney general for the province of Quebec to review the matter. If in their wisdom they decide that there are no grounds for criminal prosecution then so be it.

However, if there are grounds for a criminal prosecution the criminal prosecution should proceed and the attorneys general, either one of the two, should not take into account political consequences of the rule of law or a potential breach of the Criminal Code.

We are not talking about a minor or summary conviction offence. We are talking about an indictable offence under the Criminal Code. Therefore, I would urge you, Mr. Speaker, to refer this matter to the committee for complete consideration.

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

Mr. Speaker, the essential thing we are discussing here is a breach of parliamentary privilege.

I would like to point out that it goes beyond that: this House is representative of the people of Canada. The issue is of national importance. It is incumbent on us to discuss it here. But when we do so, we are doing so on behalf of all Canadians. All Canadians have been sitting by for months looking at the issue and asking: "What is happening?"

I would suggest that many of us as members of Parliament have received words, letters, protests from citizens asking: "What are you doing?"

I suggest that in addition to addressing the privileges of Parliament in this issue we are also addressing offences, if not in law as pointed out by the last member, in the privileges of the Canadian people.

[René Laurin, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I think the House has spent enough time on this point of privilege this morning. We had some important problems to discuss. The real problems are those of the bills we should be debating, those of the unemployed. We are digressing; the government and the other opposition party are digressing from the discussion we should be having on the real problems at hand.

We asked for an allotted day in order to talk about those problems and not to find out if the Bloc Quebecois had the right to tell the truth to people during the referendum campaign.

Mr. Speaker, I call on you to declare the debate concluded on this question of privilege. I think you have heard enough to have a good idea and that you will be able to hand down a fair ruling in the near future.

[The Speaker]

My colleagues, as I said to you at the beginning of my remarks in the House, as your Speaker I view the matter we have now undertaken as a very serious one.

The House has always been indulgent with me. It would be my intention for the next few minutes to call a recess of the House. I wish to inform myself on a few points and then I will come back to the House.

For the next little while I will recess the House.

(The sitting of the House was suspended at 10.43 a.m.)

The House resumed at 11.23 a.m.

[The Speaker]

The House today is being faced with one of the more serious matters we have been faced with in this 35th Parliament. As a matter of fact, in my view it is so serious that the matter's being raised at the first opportunity, which I have brought up in passing, is moot.

The ultimate act in which one member may confront another member is by making a charge against that member. Mr. Speaker Michener noted that there should be no investigation of any member's conduct unless there is a specific charge. This specific charge must be made by way of a substantive motion.

I am of the opinion that nothing will be gained by delaying consideration of this issue to a later date.

I believe the charges are so grave against one of our own members that the House should deal with this accusation forthwith. I invite the hon. member for Okanagan-Similkameen-Merritt to put his motion before the House.

[Jim Hart, Reform, Okanagan—Similkameen—Merritt, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I move:

Whereas the member for Charlesbourg, acting as the defence critic for the Bloc Quebecois and supported by the then Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, released a communiqué on the letterhead of the office of the leader of the official opposition on October 26, 1995 before the referendum in Quebec inviting all francophone members of the Canadian Armed Forces to join the Quebec military in the event of a "yes" vote supporting separation from Canada;

That in the opinion of this House, this action by the hon. member for Charlesbourg, and the then leader of the official opposition should be viewed as seditious and offensive to this House and constitutes a contempt of Parliament; and consequently, the House refer the matter to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs for examination.

[The Speaker]

Who will be the seconder for this motion? The honourable member for Saanich-Gulf Islands.

[Jim Hart, Reform, Okanagan—Similkameen—Merritt, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my main purpose of this effort today is to draw the line on what is unacceptable behaviour with respect to trying to get members of the Canadian Armed Forces to take sides on the secession issue.

Canadians from coast to coast have been contacting me as the defence critic for the Reform Party of Canada objecting to this action taken by the separatist party in the House.

Retired Major-General Lewis MacKenzie recently told Diane Francis, the editor of the Financial Post : ``Only in Canada could you get away with something like that. In some countries people would be waiting in jail. In Canada the attitude is ignore it, it will go away, there are more important issues''.

Many Canadians share my view that there are no issues more important than the one the House faces today.

We in this place have tried to behave accordingly, waiting for the people of Quebec to say no to separation. For example, many of us did not agree with the fairness of the referendum question. Many of us had problems with many things surrounding the activities of the separatists in Quebec, the government and the words of the separatist party in this House.

However, Canadians are strongly objecting to what was done to our Canadian Armed Forces personnel during the pre-referendum debates. The call to defect from the Canadian military is more than Canadians can accept as acceptable behaviour by parliamentarians. It is more than our armed forces personnel should have to accept as acceptable behaviour from elected representatives in this place.

We must not be forced to sit on our hands in the face of this incident. We must protect the integrity of this institution and have it seen by all Canadians that we are doing everything we can to ensure that hon. members conduct themselves within the limits of acceptable behaviour.

We have tried to deal with the attempt to break up our country. We have met every argument head on in our attempts to keep the country unified.

It is not fair to Canadians that this incident has no remedy. It is not fair that this thing has happened without any form of authority or debate to respond to it. Canadians want this House to deal with what many describe as seditious and offensive behaviour to this House.

All hon. members of this House are trying to respond to their constituents, asking for an explanation of how it is that our military can be meddled with by those attempting to break up our country. This House owes Canadians the right to pursue offensive actions on behalf of every person represented in this place. This House owes our Canadian Armed Forces personnel the right to have this matter investigated by us. We owe it to ourselves to make sure that this incident is not offensive to the Parliament of Canada.

Media reports advise me that the call to arms printed on the letterhead of the Leader of Her Majesty's Official Opposition was faxed to national media outlets and to every Canadian forces base in Quebec. The communiqué reached our peacekeepers in Bosnia. The Liberal defence minister called the plot shocking and outrageous. The Liberal defence minister has told the media that he sought legal advice from the top echelons at the Department of National Defence. Since then we have heard nothing from the Liberal defence minister.

Canadians know that the minister has once again mismanaged his duties of his cabinet portfolio. Canadians wanted something to be done about what many people believe to be a criminal act. Canadians are proud of our military establishment and we are anxious to speak up on behalf of the men and women serving in the Canadian Armed Forces.

No one, no one can meddle with the Canadian Armed Forces and brag about it. Brag about it; that is what they have done. I have been told that the Bloc Quebecois voted on this intention in its caucus. The Bloc Quebecois caucus voted in support of releasing this communiqué and then the Leader of Her Majesty's Official Opposition certainly supported sending the communiqué.

As of today Canadians perceive no apologies, no regrets and no Mr. Bouchard. The people of Canada have tried to take this thing to the courts because the Liberals have decided to do nothing about it. Everyone knows that for political reasons the Liberals have advised themselves not to touch this one. The Liberals did not ask Lucien Bouchard to retract the communiqué, discipline his caucus colleagues or apologize on behalf of the separatists. The appropriateness of this kind of behaviour should be debated in public.

The release of the communiqué calls into question the integrity of certain Quebec separatists. How can these same political leaders declare that they intend to engage in peaceful negotiations with the rest of Canada? A yes vote in the referendum was supposed to mean that negotiations were to begin. However, it is very clear from the actions of the Bloc Quebecois defence critic that a yes vote would have been treated by some separatists as some sort of immediate declaration of independence and sovereignty.

The people of Quebec were supposed to be voting yes to negotiating a new deal with Canada. With the release of the communiqué-

[The Speaker]

The member for Chambly on a point of order.

[Ghislain Lebel, Bloc, Chambly, QC]

Mr. Speaker, a point of privilege please. The member said earlier that the House of Commons is a court. The member just made some declarations based on hear-say, without any evidence. If this is really a court, then the appropriate rules still apply.

[The Speaker]

My dear colleague, the House of Commons is the highest court in the country. As members, we have the privilege of debating in this House. We are now debating a motion which was tabled. Maybe you have a point, but not a point of order.