I have listened very carefully to the three sides of the argument, with the member of New Democratic Party coming in.
At question period your Speaker has the rules as they are laid out in Beauchesne's. They are the rules that we have all agreed to here in the House of Commons. Sometimes the Speaker is asked to make rulings that take us down a different path.
During the course of question period, in the preamble, notwithstanding the fact that they are short preambles these days, I am willing to give as much leeway as I can. As as matter of fact, if I could criticize myself, it is because sometimes I give a little bit too much leeway both in the questions and the answers.
I did not know for sure where the first questions were going and it seemed to me that it might fit in. Perhaps in hindsight, as I review all of the words said in Hansard , I might want to reconsider.
I would like to quote another citation which I do not think has been cited today. It is in Beauchesne's at page 123 where it states at citation 420:
The Speaker has stated, “Of course, the Chair will allow a question to be put to a certain Minister; but it cannot insist that that Minister rather than another should answer it”.
When a question is put my general guideline is that a question is put of course to the government. The government usually assigns ministers who will be in charge of a certain administrative function. In the past other Speakers have ruled, and I have ruled myself, that the question must go to the administrative responsibility of the particular minister.
The question has been opened today. Outside the administrative responsibilities it seems now that we or some members of the House would like to open the question of regional political responsibilities. I am loathe to proceed down this particular path because again in my mind I conjure up perhaps questions where every minister would be asked, for example—and I use this only as a hypothetical case to explain myself—what is their feeling on capital punishment or what is their feeling on abortion. At what point in there do I intervene or do I and did indeed intervene.
I am deciding that I will follow the paths of previous Speakers and as much as possible—again I leave myself a little bit of leeway but not too much—if a question is posed directly to a minister, as my guideline, it should deal as much as possible with the administrative responsibility of the minister in question and not with a political responsibility.
If the House in its wisdom chooses to change the rules which you would like the Speaker to operate under then I of course am the servant of the House.
The hon. member for Winnipeg—Transcona has asked that the Speaker perhaps give an indication as to how a regional minister might be approached about certain information. It is not the responsibility of the Speaker of the House of Commons to indicate to members how they should or should not put their questions nor how they should or should not answer the questions. I would leave that to the genius of the members of Parliament, both in putting and answering their questions, so that they would be proper.
If in the decisions that I made today, perhaps in the first part, I was a little bit too lenient then I was; I accept responsibility for that. But my course action specifically will be that if a specific question is put to a specific minister it should deal with a specific administrative responsibility, and I would rule that there is no point of order.