Mr. Speaker, the rule book governing the procedures of the House is very clear in Chapter 11:
...it has always been a fundamental rule of questioning Ministers that the subject matter of the question must fall within the collective responsibility of the Government or the individual responsibility of one of its Ministers. This is the only basis upon which Ministers can be expected to answer questions.
Earlier in question period, the member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke asked a question regarding the conduct of the member for Timmins—James Bay, who is an NDP member and not a member of the government. There are a couple of things that I think bear hearing out on this point.
The first is that as per the rule that I just cited—