Discussion · Oral Questions
Elizabeth May Green
“I want to put on the record what happened yesterday before the budget. The Prime Minister and the finance minister disrupted the House by waving the budget and cheering. They turned this place into a political rally.”
“Mr. Speaker, my point of order, unusually at the end of the question period, relates to something that happened yesterday in this place at approximately four o’clock. I think it was the member for Similkameen—South Okanagan—West Kootenay who had the floor and was speaking when the House was disrupted, very much contrary to Standing Order 16(2), in a gross violation of decorum. It was probably an accident that the Prime Minister and Minister of Finance thought it was appropriate to enter the House waving the budget and essentially turning this place of parliamentary business into a Liberal rally. I was deeply offended. I have never seen anything like it. I know the Speaker called for order at the time and did his best to remind people to take their seats, but a presentation of a budget, and I have been to many of them, is a moment when members are keen to hear from the Minister of Finance, not to have the budget paraded as a document with lots of cheering and whooping it up. I just wanted to put it on the record. The event has now passed, but people can find lots of photos of it on The Globe and Mail’s website.”
Mr. Speaker, my point of order, unusually at the end of the question period, relates to something that happened yesterday in this place at approximately four o’clock. I think it was the member for Similkameen—South Okanagan—West Kootenay who had the floor and was speaking when the House was disrupted, very much contrary to Standing Order 16(2), in a gross violation of decorum. It was probably an accident that the Prime Minister and Minister of Finance thought it was appropriate to enter the House waving the budget and essentially turning this place of parliamentary business into a Liberal rally. I was deeply offended. I have never seen anything like it. I know the Speaker called for order at the time and did his best to remind people to take their seats, but a presentation of a budget, and I have been to many of them, is a moment when members are keen to hear from the Minister of Finance, not to have the budget paraded as a document with lots of cheering and whooping it up. I just wanted to put it on the record. The event has now passed, but people can find lots of photos of it on The Globe and Mail’s website.