Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. I rise in this House to raise a point of order. I am deeply distressed by the events in this House yesterday.
At the start of this parliament, an agreement was reached among the parliamentary leaders, which we passed on to you, to the effect that the order of oral questions is always prepared in advance to ensure the House functions better.
There was also an underlying principle, which was that a political party wasting the time of the House, using up time in question period for other purposes, would be penalized in the number of questions available to it.
There have been quite a few Oral Question Periods in which the Bloc Quebecois—each time it is the Bloc—has lost its seventh question. Today we lost our sixth question because, on the other side of the House—and they have frankly admitted it—they were happy to take fewer questions because the minister, who was in an awkward situation, had fewer answers to give.
The Liberals have two questions in Oral Question Period. I do not understand why, under a principle of fairness, under the agreements reached among the parliamentary leader, which must still be in effect—if they are no longer in effect, I would like to be informed, and we will get that straightened out quickly—under what principle did the Bloc Quebecois today lose not only its seventh question but its sixth as well, whereas the Liberals had all theirs, but they wasted the time of the House by standing up, heckling, applauding and fooling around, while we were discussing a matter of great importance?
Mr. Speaker, I call on you and ask the following: What sort of rules will it take for us to also be entitled to the number of questions set out in the original agreement? It always comes just before the Bloc Quebecois' question and it is beginning to get under our skin in a big way, to put it frankly.