The Chair has been placed in a situation where he very much has to follow what is listed here. I thank the hon. member for Dufferin—Caledon for quoting the motion. I will say that, yes, it says “the Speaker shall interrupt”, which the Speaker did. More fully, the motion states:
...the Speaker shall interrupt the proceedings to permit the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance to make a statement followed by a period of up to 10 minutes for questions and comments; after the statement, a Member from each recognized opposition party, and a Member of the Green Party, may reply for a period approximately equivalent to the time taken by the Minister's statement and each statement shall be followed by a period of 10 minutes for questions and comments.
The difficulty the Chair finds itself in is that the motion is a permissive motion. The minister chose not to make a statement, by which the rest of the order does not follow.
I will be listening to a number of hon. members about this, and there are a number of members who are on their feet for points of order.
The hon. member for Berthier—Maskinongé.