“Members of Parliament from small parties should have the same rights as everyone else. No rule says we cannot sit on committees. I want to know why the government is giving money to the NDP instead of making sure their members can sit on committees.”

“Mr. Speaker, this gives us a chance to look at something again. The recognized party status rules were created by law in 1963 to do one thing only, which was to provide funding to parties that have at least 12 members of Parliament in the House. That law said nothing about changing the rights that each member of Parliament has vis-à-vis each other. As the leader of the Green Party of Canada with a seat for Saanich—Gulf Islands, I should in theory have equal rights to those of every other member of the House, because the 1963 rule did not say, and no rule has ever said, that members of Parliament from parties with fewer than 12 MPs cannot sit on committees. I verified this quite recently with the clerk to make sure. As the clerk described it, it is a practice of long standing, not a rule. Why has the government decided it is okay to provide funding to the NDP members but not to ensure that those very fine members sit on committees?”