We all heard what he said. It is not for the Chair to interpret what hon. members say, but it is for the Chair to make a ruling on the question of privilege that the hon. member for West Vancouver--Sunshine Coast in his usual succinct and direct way has put to the House.
I thank the hon. member, the hon. minister of state and government House leader, and other members besides the hon. member for Winnipeg--Transcona who from their seats have contributed to the discussion.
I can perhaps best deal with this matter by referring to the decision I made on March 1, 2001 on a similar point, a decision to which the hon. member for West Vancouver--Sunshine Coast referred when he made his argument. He said it was the 69th time the government had used time allocation and he felt that he should raise the issue then. He did and I made a ruling. I want to quote again from the ruling if I may. I stated:
--under our current standing orders, it would be highly inappropriate for the Chair to take unilateral action on issues already provided for in the standing orders. Where the standing orders gives the Speaker some discretion, then it is the Speaker's responsibility to be guided accordingly; where no such guidance is provided, no such action can be taken. It is certainly not up to the Chair to establish a timetable for the business of the House.
I quoted it then and will quote again today from the ruling of Mr. Speaker Lamoureux on July 24, 1969 where he said:
The Speaker is the servant of the House. Honourable Members may want me to be the master of the House today but tomorrow, when, perhaps in other circumstances I might claim this privilege, they might have a different opinion—I am not prepared at this time to take this responsibility on my shoulders. I think it is my duty to rule on such matters in accordance with the rules, regulations and standing orders which honourable Members themselves have turned over to the Speaker to administer.
In the standing orders before us there is no discretion given to the Speaker to determine when the government may use time allocation or indeed closure in the House. There have been days before I became Speaker when I used to urge that the Speaker be given this kind of discretion, but we have had the revisions to the standing orders since I became Speaker and no such provision was included in those revisions. I am sure this is a matter perhaps much lamented by members on every side, but given the circumstances I feel there is little I can do today. I cite also Marleau & Montpetit page 570 which states:
As with closure, the Speaker has ruled that the Chair possesses no discretionary authority to refuse to put a motion of time allocation if all the procedural exigencies have been observed.
We have not yet gotten to a motion to be put to the House today. It might happen in a few minutes but I can only say that at the moment I have not seen any exigencies unobserved that would lead me to believe that in this case the motion is not one that could be put to the House were it to happen some time later this day in accordance with the notice we have received.
With respect to this bill, given the fact that we have had something like 40 speakers at third reading it would be difficult to persuade the Chair that the motion for time allocation was being used prematurely, whereas I might be hearing that argument had there only been one speaker or something like that.
I think hon. members can appreciate the difficulty in which the Chair finds itself and can sympathize with the Chair when I say that in my view there is no question of privilege before the House at this time.