Thank you, Mr. Allooloo. The House will come to order. Good afternoon.
Speaker's Ruling
I would like to provide the House with my ruling on the point of order raised on March 27th by the Member for Thebacha, Mrs. Marie-Jewell.
The Member's point of order was that the Member for Iqaluit, in comments he made on March 10th, had used the word "irresponsibly" which Mrs. Marie-Jewell felt was unparliamentary and implied allegations against her. I would like to repeat the exact words that were used by Mr. Patterson as they are contained on page 1371 of unedited Hansard, and I quote:
"But, Mr. Speaker, in my view, if Members are allowed to act irresponsibly and table unsigned documents which may be furnished to Members for malicious or political purposes, then this is, in fact, an abuse of the privileges we enjoy as Members. And, it will diminish the reputation of this Assembly."
I note with a bit of disappointment that Mrs. Marie-Jewell, in making comments on the point of order, indicated, and I quote, "Not only should I request an apology from Mr. Patterson, which I won't..." I would have hoped that all Members would have sufficient respect for each other and that Mrs. Marie-Jewell would have given the Member the benefit of the doubt and at least offered him the opportunity to apologize if he felt he had used unparliamentary language. However, that was not to be the case, therefore, I am required to rule on the point of order.
I note that Beauchesne's 6th edition provides in citation 489, and I quote:
"Since 1958, it has been ruled unparliamentary to use the following expressions:
- Irresponsible Members, Debates, May 8, 1969, page 8476; and,
- Irresponsible reply, Debates, December 5, 1962, page 2346."
In reviewing the point of order, I referred back to the actual House of Commons debates of 1962 and 1969, in which the two incidents I mentioned were ruled upon. I note that in the 1962 debates, the words "irresponsible reply" were used to describe a response made by then Prime Minister, Mr. Diefenbaker, and in the 1969 case the words "irresponsible Members" were used to describe the actions of Members generally and one Member in particular. I would like to quote from Beauchesne's citation 486(1):
"It is impossible to lay down any specific rules in regard to injurious reflections uttered in debate against particular Members, or to declare beforehand what expressions are or are not contrary to order; much depends upon the tone and manner, and intention, of the person speaking; sometimes upon the person to whom the words are addressed, as, whether that person is a public officer, or a private Member not in office, or whether the words are meant to be applied to public conduct or to private character; and sometimes upon the degree of provocation, which the Member speaking had received from the person alluded to; and all these considerations must be attended to at the moment, as they are infinitely various and cannot possibly be foreseen in such a manner that precise rules can be adopted with respect to them."
Under the same citation, subparagraph (3) is also appropriate to bring to the Member's attention:
"3"There are few words that have been judged to be unparliamentary consistently, and any list of unparliamentary words is only a compilation of words that at some time have been found to cause disorder in the House."
I have considered the context in which the apparently offensive words were used and considered the comments of Mr. Patterson in speaking to the point of order. As with any point of order and in particular when unparliamentary language is the issue, you have to consider the tone and manner and the intention of the person speaking. I note that Mr. Patterson did preface his reference to Members with the word "if". I considered Mr. Patterson's submission of yesterday's date to be sufficient to explain that his intention was not to refer to any specific action undertaken by a specific Member. The context within which his comments were made dealt with a point of order that focused on the rules and practices of permitting unsigned letters to be tabled in the House. In keeping with the precedent outlined in Beauchesne's, I have considered the tone, manner and intention of the Member for Iqaluit when making his comments.
When there is no clear breach or order, I feel it is important to accept the word of a Member. Therefore, I rule that the words uttered are not unparliamentary and that the Member for Thebacha does not have a point of order.
---Applause
Orders of the day. Item 2, Ministers' statement. Mr. Ng.