First Session--41st Parliament  Honourable members, pursuant to Standing Order 3, I invite Mr. Louis Plamondon, member for the electoral district of Bas-Richelieu—Nicolet—Bécancour, to take the chair and preside over the election of a Speaker.

House debate  Pursuant to Standing Order 3, I invite Mr. Louis Plamondon, member for the electoral district of Bas-Richelieu—Nicolet—Bécancour, to take the chair as the member presiding.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  My understanding, Mr. Chairman, speaking through you, is that it is...I forget the phrasing Mr. Owen used in his first question, but basically it is one of however many independents.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It's only one of however many independents.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  As I understood it, the first intervention of Monsieur Guimond, Mr. Chairman, was to say that per Mr. Proulx's excellent suggestion the wording be changed so that it reads, “one of the independent members”—

Procedure and House Affairs committee  —rather than “an independent member”, because that clarifies it. I think it makes it clearer. With regard to the interpretation of the second section in this, Mr. Chairman, in the same way that the Standing Orders operate on a kind of common law basis, it's not said anywhere how

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Mr. Chairman, yes, independent members are entitled to ask more than one question per week. As I was saying earlier, this is based upon the Speaker's calculations in determining how many questions or statements, from a purely mathematical point of view, should be allowed independ

Procedure and House Affairs committee  As I recall, the unrecognized parties that don't reach that threshold are not actually.... Obviously there are discussions that go on with their colleagues from recognized parties, but I don't think they figure in the actual divvying up of the number of slots in question period i

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The SO 31 is dealt with by the second draft standing order.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, SO 37 is the question.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  That would be governed by the usual rules that exist. They're not usually members of standing committees, as you know, because that's again a purview jealously guarded by the recognized parties.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  That's right.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I think on average there have been two, and more rarely three.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Because of the nature of the situation, I'm a little reluctant to speculate as to what would happen just based on numbers. I think at the time there were discussions because the Conservative Party was one of the founding parties in the country, etc. That was more of a deciding fa

Procedure and House Affairs committee  That's right. It seems to me that the difficulty perceived with the way the Speaker is handling it now--and this is a precedent that he himself has been respecting--is that he's considering them as a collective of independents, if you will. That would not be possible under this p