Mr. Speaker, I am very surprised by the attack made by the Canadian Alliance Party. You will forgive me if I reply at some length.
Basically what the whip for the former party said was that I was absent from the House on Friday because he felt that I was unable to get the 100 signatures that I was expected to get in order for Bill C-206 to remain on the order paper. He was making the assumption that I had to get those signatures by that Friday in order for my bill to remain on the order paper.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to take you through exactly what the whip for the Reform Party did say. I would like you to compare it with the evidential record. The member was referring to the procedure and House affairs committee discussions of March 2 in which the status of my signatures and Bill C-206 were discussed in the context of a point of privilege that you ruled on, Mr. Speaker.
He said on Friday that during the discussions at committee it was suggested that the member for Wentworth—Burlington be apprised of the intentions of the committee before the committee actually finalized its report in order to allow him time to seek the recommended support for his bill. The reason for this urgency was because the committee intended the deadline to be the first opportunity for the bill to be considered for its first hour of debate.
Mr. Speaker, I have in my hands—not as a prop—the committee record of that discussion of March 2. In it you will find no such reference. There was no such discussion by anyone in that committee about whether I should be apprised to get my signatures in advance of the final report.
Moreover, Mr. Speaker, I received no official communication from the committee before the finalized 19th report. No one said anything to me about the decision to require me to get the signatures again for my Bill C-206.
It might interest you to know, Mr. Speaker, that the timing was interesting as well because the deputy whip tabled the 19th report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs on March 17, the Friday before March 20, which was the first day that the committee record became available. The records were not even available before the report was finalized and I received no communication whatsoever. I suggest to you that what was said by the hon. member for Prince George—Peace River is completely at odds with the facts.
Mr. Speaker, while I was aware of the recommendation that was contemplated by the committee, even before the report was finalized, I, quite honestly, never expected you to rule the way you did. I did not expect you to uphold the recommendation that came from that committee much less the recommendation as contained in the finalized report that was only available to me on the Friday before the Tuesday on which you ruled.
Nevertheless, Mr. Speaker, I took your ruling in good spirits because I respect the Chair. I might find it uncomfortable sometimes when you rule in ways that take me by surprise but nevertheless I respect that any time you do approach a ruling you approach it with the kind of dispassionate impartiality that we expect of you.
Last Friday the whip for the Reform Party went on to say:
The member for Wentworth—Burlington rose after the Speaker's ruling and sought further clarification. He clarified with the Chair that if he could secure 100 signatures by Friday, March 24, 200, today, his bill could remain on the order paper.
What is it that I actually said following your ruling on March 21? Mr. Speaker, for your benefit, I will quote what I actually said. I said:
What I am asking you, Mr. Speaker, is, if I can get the signatures in the next day or so that perhaps Bill C-206 could remain where it is on the order of precedence rather than being dropped to the very bottom and perhaps not being debated for some months to come.
Just to be doubly sure, I repeated it and said:
What I am asking you, Mr. Speaker, is, if I can get the hundred signatures in the next day or two—and I would hope to have the co-operation of the opposition parties in this—can my bill remain on the order of precedence and come up on Friday—
Mr. Speaker, as you can see from what I just said, the assumption was that I would have the opportunity to collect those signatures so long as the bill remained on the order of precedence, whether it was on the order of precedence for Friday or dropped in the order of precedence at the time, it did not matter. In fact, Mr. Speaker, in your own words, you said:
I believe the question the hon. member is asking is whether this bill will come up in the normal course of events. The answer is, yes. Is that what the question is?
I said “Yes”. So, Mr. Speaker, that is clear. You can see, if you go back to what the whip for the Reform Party said, he has distorted the record. He was suggesting that for some reason there was a ruling on your part that prevented my bill from dropping to the bottom of the order of precedence and not being valid as a result of having done so.
The most wounding and injurious thing of all that the member for Prince George—I can never remember where it is.