Mr. Speaker, I do not want to talk too long on this matter, since it is a point of order. This is not a period of debate. I will limit myself to a few comments.
First, the government has no intention of letting such an accusation against the Chair sit for long on the order paper. It is of course not true. The government too would like to debate the charge, this motion of non confidence as it was put, in the very near future. I do not agree with this accusation, but we will talk about it again, and I am quite prepared to debate it.
However, I think you should be aware of certain facts. First, I intend to meet with the House leaders of the other parties. I would like to set a date in the very near future so we may purge the House of this accusation. As I have said, I do not agree with the accusation at all, but I will debate it when the time comes. I think we could do so in the coming days, and I am prepared to initiate discussions with the other House leaders.
Today had been allotted to one of the opposition parties, not only as a matter of practice, but in keeping with our constitutional conventions of there being a number of opposition days—in this case, seven—before the budget votes to pay our employees' salaries, benefits to Canadians, social benefits and everything else we have to pay are concurred in.