Madam Speaker, I think that, this afternoon, the Reform Party has been attempting to skirt the issue. Before the House recessed for Christmas and before the prorogation of Parliament, they had put forward a motion in which they asked to be recognized as the official opposition. You will recall that they had asked the Speaker to rule on a motion claiming the status of official opposition.
Last week, the Speaker of the House of Commons came back with an excellent ruling, stating that the Bloc Quebecois had achieved official opposition status in 1993, after the elections, and was the second party in the House of Commons. In the event of an equality of seats, and this is purely mathematical, and of our losing one seat or of the Reform Party gaining one, they will become the second party, or we might remain the second party.
I suggest that we wait for the result of the March 25 byelection, at which time the Bloc Quebecois' position will be consolidated, with at least 54 seats.
I think that the masks should be taken away from the Reform Party members. I think that playing this role, this afternoon, and raising this issue about the chairmanship or vice-chairmanship of committees, is basically a back-door method of showing that the Speaker was wrong and should have designated the Reform Party as the official Opposition. They are trying to send to English Canada the message that the Speaker made a mistake.
Again, I maintain that the designation of the official opposition is purely mathematical. The advantage for us of having a Bloc member as vice-chair of a committee is, as the member for Portneuf explained, that it gives us priority for the first five minutes of questions to witnesses who appear before the committee. The vice-chair also sits on the steering committee that determines priorities on the agenda.
We have wasted a lot of time. We have been discussing this issue since oral question period ended, at 3 p.m. The Reform Party makes an issue of who should be vice-chair and who should be chair.
We are told that the interest on the national debt increases at the rate of $1,000 per second. The Reform Party should realize that, while we are arguing about who should fill the positions of vice-chair and chair, the interest on the debt has gone up $10,800.
We should be discussing job creation, programs and the future of our young people. Instead, the Reform Party is using roundabout means to try to show Canadians that the Speaker erred when he ruled that the Bloc Quebecois will remain the official opposition.