Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am going to rise with some objection to the motion that comes forward because I have some concerns on how the development of the rules and the procedures of the Legislative Assembly have emerged.
By and large, 99.9 percent, I support the initiative that has come forward, but I do have an issue with how the section called Point of Order has been evolved and finally found its, I guess I'll say, end wording.
It's my view that under Section 25, and I won't go through the full detail, but it says when a Member is to raise a point of order they shall cite. My view is they should cite the error that they feel that the rule has been broken and how it falls under.
As a Legislature, you're not expected to know everything in the House, but you should understand the general rules before us. Generally speaking, under a point of order, we usually find about 15 rules that we typically follow. Now, there are a lot of hidden practices and rules and nuances that every Assembly and every Chamber follows, and if we really boil it down, points of order generally fall into two or three different types of categories. In my experience over the last almost 12 years, it does.
As we migrate the word “shall” instead of using “should.” what it does is make Members, in my opinion, and humbly I say this, Members are lazy. They should know the rules of the House, and I think it's fair that we should know the rules of how to do our job. Because if a person doesn't know the rule when they stand up and say I think someone broke a rule, and they're standing up, there is a point of order, the person charged, the person accused should know what rule they breached. It's only a simple question of natural justice, and I don't think that's fair.
I think we are not doing our job by not learning the rules. I would expect no less from a hockey player to understand what the blue line and the red line mean. I would expect a baseball player to know the rules. I expect a person driving down the road in a vehicle to understand the rules of that. Why would we think of ourselves less as legislators not to know the rules of the House? I don't expect someone to know it all the first day, but I certainly expect that they learn them, because they're actually quite straightforward. That doesn't mean we won't break them from time to time, and it doesn't mean we won't be called upon for correction, but to ask someone to stand up and say I think this person broke a rule and put it down to the Assembly machinery, be it the staff, be it you, Mr. Speaker, to figure out what rule they've broken, I think is being lazy and people should be doing their job.
I could speak endlessly on this, but the reality is I'm in the minority on this particular situation and I recognize that. Frankly, I still think strongly, though, that when someone calls a point of order they should say what the grievance is, and therefore the person accused of breaking the rule will fully understand and know what position they need to defend. Because rather than sitting there and assuming, well, I'm going to defend it because I don't know, I don't understand what the issue is, but they're calling me wrong, it makes little sense. I define it purely as natural justice must be served, no different than when someone is driving down the road and a police officer pulls them over. It's the same type of process. I'm pulling you over because I think something might be wrong and we'll figure it out until we do get something wrong.
In the House if someone is called on a point of order, they should know exactly what the charge is and why, and that is the principle of how we should be operating.
In short, I believe the Assembly by choosing this approach on this one rule shows itself to be lazy for the job we could and should be doing. Thank you.