Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order pursuant to Standing Order 10 of the House of Commons, which states at the beginning: “The Speaker shall preserve order and decorum, and shall decide questions of order.”
We must consider the fact that time is immutable and that the Standing Orders set out that question period takes place from Monday to Thursday between 2:15 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. The quota of questions from each party is determined by the results of the last general election and reflects the representation of each party here in the House of Commons.
The members of this House, as well as those listening in the gallery and watching question period on television, all witnessed the standing ovations specifically from the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party. I am weighing my words and I can confirm this. We counted the number of standing ovations by these two parties that we saw today. Given the number of these ovations and the fact that time is immutable, as I stated earlier, this has deprived the Bloc Québécois and the NDP, yesterday and today, of the opportunity to put a question that had been negotiated on the basis of the quotas established according to the results of the last election.
As proof, I will tell you how many standing ovations have taken place today. There have been six standing ovations by the Conservative Party. There have been four by the Liberal Party. There have been none by the Bloc Québécois or the NDP.