Mr. Speaker, I was in attendance at the meeting last night, and was there for some days before, and in spite of the vigorous bluster of the House leader of the government, I think he is clouding the issue.
Certainly in the reference given to you from Marleau and Montpetit, Mr. Speaker, it suggests that the Speaker can and should rule on these matters of committee only in extraordinary circumstances. I would suggest that from what I heard and saw in committee last night the circumstances certainly have become extraordinary. Mr. Speaker, I would urge you to consider that.
The issue is not whether it was a legitimate move to cut off debate after 31 hours. The issue of using closure in committee is a big issue and sets a big precedent in this place. We have operated for some 130 years without closure in committee and I would hesitate to support starting to do that now.
However, that is not the issue. The issue is that a member of the Liberal side of the committee moved a motion to put the question and the chairman of the committee at the time ruled that the motion was out of order because the member for the NDP had the floor. The chairman ruled correctly. That motion was out of order at the time. Then the committee itself challenged the chair and voted down the ruling of the chair. That is the part I would like a ruling on. Was the ruling of the chair correct or incorrect? If the ruling of the chair was correct, then the members of the committee were incorrect in challenging him, voting him down and forcing us to debate what essentially was an illegal motion.