Good afternoon. Before we commence with the orders of the day, I would like to respond to the point of order raised by Ms. Cournoyea, February 25, 1992. Ms. Cournoyea raised her point of order during the item, Members' statements. The point of order raised by Ms. Cournoyea was that comments made by the honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre during his Member's statement were contrary to Rule 35(i) which states: "In debate a Member will be called to order by the Speaker if he: (i) imputes false or unavowed motives to another Member."
In reviewing the matter, I had to refer to the unedited Hansard of February 24th as that contained the remarks where Mr. Lewis indicated the Government Leader had made certain comments concerning the capabilities of Ordinary Members. In reviewing the unedited Hansard of February 24th, I could not find where the Government Leader had made any disparaging comments along the lines indicated by Mr. Lewis on February 25th during his Member's statement.
In ruling that the Government Leader does have a point of order, I would like to point out the difficulty for all Members in achieving the exact measure of precision in their comments to prevent misunderstanding. The Government Leader was perhaps not as precise as she could have been, and perhaps Mr. Lewis had a more negative interpretation of her words than was intended by the Government Leader. However, the free exchange of ideas is always a difficult area, and I would ask Members to be as precise as possible and to give each other the benefit of the doubt where possible. Thank you.
Orders of the day for Wednesday, February 26, 1992. Item 2, Ministers' statements. Mr. Patterson.