I thank hon. members for their interventions on this matter. I want to reiterate that, notwithstanding the sometimes persuasive powers of the government whip, I have never been one to be pushed around by the government whip in any of his incarnations.
What I decided to do was on the basis that the Chair had made a mistake. It was not that the House had made a mistake, but that the Chair had made a mistake and had been in possession of the wrong documents and therefore the procedure relevant to Standing Order 56.1 had not happened in the appropriate way. To seek the unanimous consent of the House, of course, would have been to create a situation in which the correction of the error would have been impossible. It was the decision of the Chair.
I will take these matters under advisement and discuss it with the Speaker, but for now the decision certainly stands. I reiterate that it was a decision of the Chair in an attempt to correct a mistake that had been made here, and it was corrected with the intention of giving the House the opportunity to express itself in the way that Standing Order 56.1 actually requires.
We will move to questions and comments on the speech of the hon. Minister of Public Safety, with the hon. member for Burnaby—Douglas.