Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Pierrefonds—Dollard.
Mr. Speaker, I am anxious to involve myself in this debate on how we make statements, how we acquiesce to demands inside our own caucus and how we help our caucus colleagues find a way to make statements.
I can use the example of what happened just a few weeks ago when a good friend of mine, a great friend of the folks in Welland, the late Peter Kormos, passed away on a Saturday. I sent a note to my whip's office saying that I would love to do a statement on Monday to commemorate Peter's life, because he had just passed away. My colleagues were very accepting of that fact. Indeed, I ended up on the list, even though it was not my regular rotation. We have an easy schedule that allows us to do statements when we have House duty so that we are actually here, not somewhere else or engaged in a meeting, which would cause the Speaker difficulties if no one else stood. In this caucus, we give ourselves equal opportunities for statements. I can tell members that no one, since I arrived here in 2008, has ever told members of our caucus what we could or could not say in a statement. We are free to talk about constituencies or to commemorate the life of a good friend, as I did for Peter Kormos.
It is that freedom of members of Parliament that is being debated here. How do we allow all 308 of us, all members of this House, whatever number it happens to be in the future, to speak on behalf of the folks who sent us here. Ultimately, the whips did not elect us. The folks in our constituencies, whether it be the great riding of Welland, where I come from, or the wonderful community of Langley, are the folks who sent us here. Those are the folks we represent.
As the hon. House leader said, we are inside a party structure. We run on a particular platform. However, that does not diminish our role as individual MPs in a Westminster model in which the onus is on individual members to stand to speak for their constituents.
One of the things my constituents have asked me is what my role is. I tell them that part of my role is to be their voice, because they cannot all get one day in this House of Commons. It is impossible to have all the people who live in Welland come and speak to the things that are important to them.
There are standing order rules on how we should behave and use language. We all understand that. However, it really is about articulating the views of the folks who send us here and standing up for them, regardless of who they happen to be. I do not, as a member, have to agree with other members' statements, and they do not have to agree with mine. However, what we have to do, in my view, and I say this as an individual member of Parliament, as the member for Welland, not as a member of this particular caucus or party, is treat the other members with respect, even if I totally disagree with the statements they make. They were duly elected to this House. What they say matters to the constituencies they represent. Therefore, they have the absolute right to say it.
Of course, they fall within the confines of the standing orders, as I said earlier, and the Chair will call to order someone who goes beyond the bounds of the standing orders. I admit that I have seen the hon. Speaker end a statement because he felt it went beyond the bounds of the standing orders by which we guide ourselves.
If we are going to find a way to allow all of us that opportunity, then we clearly need to look at alternatives.
My friends in the Liberal Party have offered a possible solution. They have come forward with something that would be alphabetical. I have to thank the hon. member from Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, who said that it would be alphabetical by last name and not by riding, because I would have gone from the top of the list all the way down to W, for the riding of Welland. I appreciate his clarification.
However, it still would come around the alphabet. It would still get to me, even if I was at the bottom. If I had a last name that began with W or T, I would still be recognized.
I am sure that the intent was that the Speaker's rights would not be abrogated in terms of how the Speaker recognizes who should speak. This was meant as a convention. For each party, including the independents, who would be grouped together, the alphabet rather than the whip's list would be the convention. I do not wish to put words in my colleague's mouth, but I am sure that this is my colleague's intent.
I am sure that no one in the House would have the audacity to suggest that the Speaker is wrong. In my view, the Speaker was very eloquent the other day in his ruling. He referenced the House of Commons Procedure and Practice, second edition, on page 89, which refers to the freedom of speech of members. It states:
[...] a fundamental right without which they would be hampered in the performance of their duties. It permits them to speak in the House without inhibition, to refer to any matter or express any opinion as they see fit, to say what they feel needs to be said in the furtherance of the national interest and the aspirations of their constituents.
He then went on to say, and this is where the Speaker sees he intersects with us:
The Speaker's role in safeguarding this very privilege is set out in O'Brien and Bosc at page 308. “The duty of the Speaker is to ensure that the right of Members to free speech is protected and exercised to the fullest possible extent...”.
I believe that the Speaker was absolutely right. He correctly pointed out that he is elected by us. We decided who would sit in the Chair as Speaker. He applies the rules we actually give him.
It is all of us as members who decide the rules we give to the Speaker. We empower the Speaker, through a democratic process, to adjudge the rules we have given him, because that is how we want this place to function. We ask the Speaker to accept the rules and to enforce them for us.
The Speaker gets a list to help him. It is a guide. He uses it quite often. All of us also recognize it is a guide. If an S. O. 31 comes to me, I stand up. Usually no one else tries to challenge me to take that spot away, and the Speaker recognizes me because I stood, as he did a moment ago.
Based on all of that, the help we provide the Speaker is important to how the House functions. It really is a piece of what we do in helping the Speaker adjudicate in the House, not with an iron hand but with a guiding hand so that we all feel that we have had an equal opportunity to speak, within the confines of the standing orders.
Mr. Speaker, I can see that you are getting ready to rise to let me know that the time is up. That is one of the rules we have all come to understand. We appreciate the fact that the Speaker always makes us understand that our time is up.