Mr. Speaker, I would like to go back to an incident, which occurred earlier during oral question period. It involved the Minister of Canadian Heritage, when she was answering a question raised by a Canadian Alliance member.
I want to make it clear that I am not questioning the value of Mothers' Day and even less so the role played by the mother of each member of this House.
However, during oral question period, the Minister of Canadian Heritage mentioned her mother's presence in the gallery. Mr. Speaker, we received a directive addressed by you to all the House leaders, in which it is pointed out that the right to mention the presence of certain individuals in the gallery is a privilege which, under Beauchesne's parliamentary rules, is the exclusive prerogative of the Chair. Under this procedure, a list of the names of people who may be pointed out by the Speaker is drawn up.
Twice in this House, you strongly warned members, the Bloc Quebecois member for de Repentigny and the Canadian Alliance member for Edmonton Centre-East, to apologize, and you threatened to no longer recognize them during statements by members or during oral question period.
The aim of this point of order is simply to find out if there are two standards in this House and to guide members on pointing out the presence of certain guests. We each have visits from family and want to know if, in the future, we can point out their presence during oral question period.