Mr. Speaker, Beauchesne's rules, starting at rule 407, establish exactly what the procedure is for answering questions in the House of Commons. The Speaker will know that members of the opposition have to ask questions of ministers about the departments for which they are responsible. The other parallel rule is that the government can choose any one of its members to answer a question asked.
In terms of a question being answered by a parliamentary secretary, the very excellent parliamentary secretary in this case does her job with distinction, Not only that, she has sworn and has a commission the same as others who are charged to answer questions in the House of Commons, as all of us know.
Finally, on the substance of the issue, the Prime Minister did not make an announcement yesterday. The Prime Minister gave a speech to high school students and answered questions from them. Surely no one here would take seriously that elected people in this Parliament can no longer address students in their schools. If addressing school students puts me out of order, I must be out of order a lot because I will continue speaking to students. I believe it is part of instilling the values of respect in this democratic institution.