Debates of Feb. 24th, 2021

Oral Questions

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do understand that. I just do not know whether you had ruled on a question before. I know you have ruled on S.O. 31s before.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Normally with the questions, we deal with them right away, not after the fact. That has been the rule of thumb in dealing with that. To test over again, we have already tried once and the second time.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, in respect to the same point, I ask that you might give us a little more guidance in respect of your ruling.

One of the things that is true of question period is that members cannot raise points of order during that time. Particularly in respect of a technical issue where the camera is not on, it may not be obvious to the member who is speaking that his or her camera is not on and other members are not able to raise points of order.

In the event that a member does not notice that a technical difficulty has occurred, the nature of which he or she cannot be aware of while delivering his or her question, how are we supposed to deal with it in the moment, if we cannot raise the problem in the moment?

We need some clear guidance from you, Mr. Speaker. This may well be a problem again. It will not be conducive to peace in the House if technical problems continue to interrupt members' ability to ask questions in the appropriate way.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

That is a very good point. I will take that under advisement, and I will inform the other chair occupants that should the camera not be on when someone is asking a question, we will stop the member right there and see if we can get the technical difficulty resolved. We will take that as a responsibility of the Chair, and I will speak for all the chair occupants on that one.

I want to thank the member for bringing that up. It is a concern.

I will be honest with members that it was going so smoothly that I did not want to interrupt the him. The question was very well put.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, if I could perhaps enhance the discussion that we have just had about this point of order, since you are going to take this back and get back to us on exactly how these kinds of situations will be dealt with going forward, I would also ask you to take into account whether it is the House's discretion and decision as to whether a technical glitch will be remedied by allowing a member to speak again or whether that falls exclusively within your discretion. It being a technical glitch is completely out of the control of the member who is speaking.

I would ask you, Mr. Speaker, as part of your deliberations, to return to us and rule on that as well.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

The member did ask his question, and it did get across quite clearly. It is the camera that was not on. As I mentioned earlier, as chair occupants, we will take on the responsibility to bring it up when happens. Again, it was a case that the Chair did not want to interrupt, because it was going so smoothly, but in future we will look out for any cameras that are dysfunctional and we will stop it then and resolve the technical issue.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I will appeal this as well, on behalf of the member who wanted to be seen.

You do not recognize members, Mr. Speaker, whom you cannot see when they are voting, so this does seem to be a bit of a disconnect. You also rule when our microphones are not in the right place so we can be heard for interpretation. Therefore, this does seem to be a bit of an outlier about how you are interpreting this. It would have been right to interrupt the member at that point in time.

Seeing as how he was not interrupted so his question was properly posed and we could see him properly posing his question, I would like us to reconsider providing him the ability to do that now, please.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I am afraid that we have already discussed this one and ruled on it, so we will have to move on to the next one.

The hon. member for Vancouver Kingsway.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, first, I would like to thank all my hon. colleagues for their support in this.

I am going to also raise a question of privilege, because I have a right not only to be heard but to be seen. There has been a totally inconsistent application of this. Just in the course of the last half hour, Mr. Speaker, you interrupted a member and advised her to bring her microphone down. You did not interrupt me to let me know I was not on the screen.

Also, to emphasize other points that have been made, Mr. Speaker, you have not sought unanimous consent when you have allowed other members to restate whatever their intervention has been, and I see no difference in principle between an S. O. 31 and a question in question period. The truth is that, during question period, we are not allowed to raise points of order. I was not aware that I was not on the visual screen until almost the end of question period. At that point, I did not raise it as a point of order because I thought I could not. I also was in the bottom third of question period.

For all those reasons, Mr. Speaker, and with great respect, I think you have the authority just to allow me to ask my question again when this is a technical problem. We are in uncharted territory here. This never happens when we are in a normal sitting of the House.

As my colleague said, Mr. Speaker, if you are going to ask for unanimous consent every time members have a technical problem and their computer malfunctions or they are not seen and if the hon. colleagues in the House are not going to give unanimous consent consistently, then we are never going to give unanimous consent, and that just violates the privileges of every person in the House.

Frankly, to allow me to have asked a 35-second question when my screen was not on and I was not aware of it is a violation of my privilege to ask a question and to be heard and seen. I do not see any reason why you, Mr. Speaker, cannot retest the House. I believe you would get the unanimous consent of my colleagues, but I am not sure you need it. You could have just allowed me to ask that question, just like you allow people to redo their S. O. 31s when there is a technical problem interrupting that intervention.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

We are getting to a point where there is a challenge to the Chair.

I just want to refresh the hon. member's memory. When normally there is a technical issue, we do allow points of orders during question period. That is something we have allowed since the beginning, because technically we want to make sure that everything works. The point of order was not raised until after question period was over, and that is where the difference lies. That is why I had to go back to the House to see if we had unanimous consent. That is a clarification.

I will take the hon. member's point under advisement and see where it lands and come back if I deem it necessary

The hon. member for Kingston and the Islands.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, if you are going to take that under advisement, I think there is something worthy of noting. Before I say that, I do want to congratulate you and, indeed, all three other Chair occupants who have done an exceptional job given the circumstances. I doubt that when you were elected to do this, over a year ago, that you ever imagined you would be doing it this way. All four of you have done an incredible job.

To add to this point of order, for your consideration when you come back with some form of ruling, is the fact that on all occasions you have always asked for unanimous consent to redo a statement. I have sat in the House. I see the House leader from the opposition nodding his head in agreement. Indeed, this issue occurred after question period was over.

I believe that you have done a very fair job in executing this to date and I thank you for that.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I want to remind the hon. members that they cannot refer to someone's presence in the chamber. That is a point of order.

We have another point of order. The right hon. Prime Minister has a point of order.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, you mentioned that you could not rule twice on a point of order unless you felt that things had materially changed.

[An hon. member]

He does not have a headset on.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

I suspect that if you ask for unanimous consent on the member for Vancouver Kingsway's request to repeat his question, you will find—

[An hon. member]

Does he not need a head set?

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I will ask the right hon. Prime Minister to start his statement over again.

I would ask the two hon. members in particular, without naming them, to not interrupt while he is asking his question because it does cut the sound off and we do not hear what is being said.

The right hon. Prime Minister.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in your response—

[An hon. member]

Point of order, Mr. Speaker.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

We are in the middle of a point of order on a point of order.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Mr. Speaker, this is a technical point of order. We have had discussions at the official languages committee on how interpreters are not able to interpret when they cannot hear the member. It is difficult for them to provide translation.

[An hon. member]

The member is not wearing his headset.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Order.

We have a point of order stating that someone is not wearing a headset by someone who is not wearing a headset. I wanted to point that out.

The right hon. Prime Minister, and then we will go to the hon. member for Louis-Saint-Laurent.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am speaking into a PCO-approved microphone that I was assured is fine to use. It is in my office here on the Hill.

My original point of order was that you made a ruling that you could not rule twice on the same point of order that you had already ruled on, unless you believed that something had materially changed in the likely outcome of the unanimous consent motion. I strongly believe that if you ask the House for unanimous consent on the motion by the member for Vancouver Kingsway to be able to repeat his question on video for the record, you will find that no one from the Liberal Party or the government side will oppose that unanimous consent motion.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, with all the respect I have for the Right Hon. Prime Minister, unfortunately his comments should not be taken into consideration.

He did not follow the rules. I do not care if he was using a microphone that came from NASA. He needs to use the microphone provided by the House. The House gave us all the equipment we need to do our work wherever we are, be it in the House, in our offices a few feet away from here, in our riding offices or at home.

With all due respect to the Prime Minister, no matter what microphone he has, he needs to use the one provided by the House of Commons.