Madam Speaker: As indicated at adjournment yesterday, I will continue to hear comments respecting the matter of privilege raised by the honourable member for Thompson (Mr. Ashton) before deciding whether a prima facie matter of privilege has been established.

I now recognize the honourable government House leader to conclude his remarks.

Hon. Jim Ernst (Government House Leader): Madam Speaker, it saddens me that I have to rise today to offer further advice to the Chair and to the House with regard to an issue that was very difficult, shameful, as a matter of fact, particularly yesterday in the attack on yourself. That, I think, is unprecedented, certainly in the Manitoba Legislature. The actions of the members of the New Democratic Party--and I do not refer to the opposition because it was not the members of the Liberal caucus that did that, but it was the members of the New Democratic Party in this House. The official opposition showed no respect at all. If they have a concern about your rulings, then they did the appropriate thing. They rose on a point of privilege. But they have no right to come running down onto the floor of the Chamber yelling and screaming, intimidating people. That is totally unacceptable in this House.

Madam Speaker, this is the third time this session that they have moved a motion of censure or cause for your resignation or removal. They do it, I think, at a whim. If something does not suit what they want to do, if something does not suit them particularly, then they raise those issues and cause for motions of censure or motions for your removal or resignation. I think that says volumes for what they believe in, in terms of the democratic process, because they are not prepared to respect the rules that they claim they wanted respected with respect to what they were doing. They were not prepared to respect those rules.

Madam Speaker, I heard things coming from the other side of the House yesterday that would have burned the ears of a sailor--the threats, the swearing, the unparliamentary language, approaching from the floor in a threatening manner. I mean, we have members opposite, and the member for Osborne (Ms. McGifford) continually stands on issues related to violence against women. They were the perpetrators in this House yesterday. We had two members setting on the floor, threatening you. That is totally unacceptable, and it should be unacceptable for the member for Osborne, and other members of that caucus who from time to time raise those issues in this House. That is totally unacceptable behaviour from anyone.

Mr. Steve Ashton (Opposition House Leader): On a point of order, Madam Speaker, the matter of privilege relates directly to your role as Speaker, the numerous breaches in the rules that occurred yesterday. The government House leader, if he is referencing anything that happened yesterday, should have raised that at the time. Unfortunately, the government House leader yesterday was more concerned about hijacking the rules of this Legislature.

I would ask, Madam Speaker, you rule him out of order, because what he is saying is not only incorrect, not only arising at the wrong time, it is offensive to members of this Legislature who yesterday were denied their rights as members of the Legislature. We were not even--

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Madam Speaker: Order, please. I would remind the honourable government House leader that he is to be establishing the reason for a prima facie case of privilege.

I think it is best summed up by the member for Burrows (Mr. Martindale). The member for Burrows, in speaking to a point of privilege on November 25, said, "In fact, we anticipated we--our supporters wanted us to keep this going for six months, and we said, we will keep it going as long as possible, but the government has a majority and the government will decide when it is over."

Madam Speaker, when the member for Burrows uttered those words here in this House, as I quoted just now from Hansard, on November 25, I think it said volumes for what the purposes of the actions of the New Democratic Party have been for the past several weeks. It is not a question of the issue of the Manitoba Telephone System or debate on the pros or cons of the bill, but it is primarily a matter of trying to block the bill because they philosophically do not believe in the sale of MTS, even though today we read in the paper that one of their former members--actually the former member for Inkster--does not agree with them, and he sat on the Manitoba Telephone System board for two years. One of their former ministers, who was a Minister responsible for Telephones under the Schreyer government, indicated that he had, as a matter of fact, as much as eight or 10 years ago, recommended that the Manitoba Telephone System be sold because it was going to be a millstone around the necks of the taxpayers in the future.

Madam Speaker, how did all this start? What brought us to this particular point in time in the House? How did we get to the point that we are at today?

Well, Madam Speaker, I guess the underlying cause of the whole matter started probably hundreds of years ago, but it certainly started with the fact that our rules have been fairly antiquated and we do quote precedents, I might say, out of Beauchesne and other learned people that go back as far--I think, in this House 1500-and-something was one quotation I remember.

The rules, of course, are steeped in history, but those rules do not reflect the realities of today, of the 1990s. I think collectively over the past four or five years that all members of the House determined that that was the case, that the rules were antiquated, the rules did not reflect particularly modern technology, the kind of ability to transmit to the general public on an instantaneous basis almost, the proceedings of this House. I mean, we saw, however unfortunate, the actions of yesterday afternoon an hour or so later on the television set. A hundred or two hundred or three hundred years ago, it might not have been disseminated at all, and if it was, it might have got in some kind of document or through word of mouth but certainly not with the instantaneous kind of communication that we have today.

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So, Madam Speaker, our people collectively in this House decided that we should try and do something to reform the process. Over a four- or five-year period, with a number of different individuals involved and a couple of intervening elections that caused membership to change and attitudes to change, and so on, came together and said, we should change the rules. Now that culminated in a memorandum of understanding dated December of 1995. As a matter of fact, the member for Thompson (Mr. Ashton), myself and the member for Inkster (Mr. Lamoureux) spent I hate to think how many hours dealing with the changes in rules that we thought were either desirable or doable in that process.

Madam Speaker, after the 1995 election, we assumed, I think collectively, all of us, that we had new members in the House, quite a number of new members in the House who would be more receptive perhaps to some change than were some of the ones that were here previously who had spent a long time in the Legislature and who had become entrenched, if you will, in ways and means of doing things around here and did not want to see change. But we embarked on a process of consensus building. That consensus building took us, as I say, through the fall months of last year to try and reach a consensus, and in fact we did. We did reach that consensus and we reached a memorandum of understanding signed by the member for Thompson as the opposition House leader, the member for Inkster on behalf of his Liberal members and myself as the government House leader.

Madam Speaker, some of the things in that memorandum of understanding you already know because I have, as a matter of fact, tabled that memorandum, but I think it is important to highlight one or two. Under the sessional calendar, the fall sitting will be eight weeks or part thereof in duration. Eight weeks came and went and we have sat for a further four weeks on top of that. I am not questioning your ruling of November 28 being the date that the final day of the sitting is, but the fact of the matter is we had agreed that eight weeks would be the sitting time, so we have allowed four additional weeks to consider essentially one matter, because all other matters were concluded on November 7. So we have spent four weeks dealing with one particular issue.

Madam Speaker, we changed the amount of speaking time. We changed the amount of speaking time from 40 minutes to 30 minutes because it was determined that if you cannot say it in 30 minutes, you should not say it at all, but that will be for history to judge and for those who collectively want to read Hansard over a long period of time as an easy way to go to sleep.

On the question of legislation, we changed the rule there. We said we will deal with government bills which will be introduced, printed and distributed during the spring sitting. All bills so introduced will proceed to a vote on third reading, Madam Speaker, in the final day of the fall sitting. That was November 7, according to the expectation of the rule at least anyway. So routine finance bills will be subject to the procedure of being voted on in the spring, and, in fact, we did that. We completed the Estimates process, passed all the Estimates resolutions and the finance bills in accordance with that memorandum of understanding and the rules that were ultimately adopted.

Those rules came from the committee on the rules which met on March 12 and again on February 22. The members of the opposition present on those committees on February 22--it was the member for Thompson (Mr. Ashton), the opposition House leader; the member for Wellington (Ms. Barrett), the opposition Whip; and the opposition deputy House leader (Mr. Martindale). On March 12, it was again the opposition House leader; the member for St. Johns (Mr. Mackintosh), the local guru over there for rules and whatnot, having been a former Clerk of this House; and the opposition Whip and the opposition deputy House leader; and, of course, the member for Inkster (Mr. Lamoureux) as well sat along with government members on that committee. But those rules were unanimously adopted by that committee, unanimously, and they brought forward those rules to the House on April 2. On April 2, each and every one of the members in this House voted for those rules, the rules, Madam Speaker, for which you provided the mechanism in your ruling of November 21.

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Madam Speaker, I had every reason to believe as the government House leader that during the time of the spring sitting the rules were being well received. Everyone, I think, was reasonably happy. When the House decided to break for the summer after the spring sitting, everyone, I think, was reasonably happy that they would have some time to spend with their families because historically that was not the case. The House used to sit well into July, sometimes into August and sometimes even longer, which prevented members from being with their families, particularly when their children were out of school and had an opportunity for a family vacation or at least some quality time together.

I believed in the integrity of the rules. I had spent an awful lot of time working on them, as did the member for Inkster and the member for Thompson. I thought, quite frankly, that they all, all of us, believed in those rules, and I came back on September 16 fully expecting that those rules would continue and we would in fact conclude our business, as anticipated by the rules, on November 7. But, Madam Speaker, that did not happen. Unfortunately, that was something that did not happen.

When I asked for your ruling on November 18, I still had some hope that it would be continued, but it actually did not occur, because the members clearly indicated on November 12 and 13 they were not prepared to debate the issue. They were not prepared to debate Bill 67. They wanted to debate an Opposition Day motion, but they were not prepared to debate Bill 67, notwithstanding the fact that they had abrogated what I think collectively everyone thought was going to be the appropriate time, because, Madam Speaker, I can quote a letter--and I will table this--sent by the member for Thompson to a Ms. Gertrude Wood in Killarney, Manitoba.

Dear Gertrude, the campaign to save MTS is coming down to the final few weeks. The campaign will involve as many grassroots activities and events as possible before the final vote in the Legislature on MTS on November 7--on November 7. It talked about a meeting and so on, and I will not read the rest of the letter.

The fact of the matter is, though, that the member for Thompson was either misinforming Ms. Wood in Killarney that the vote indeed was not going to happen on November 7, or why would he put in his--or he was going to respect the rules, one of the two. I will leave it to history to judge what the intent was of the member for Thompson in bringing this forward, but nonetheless it was clear that something was amiss.

Madam Speaker, the member for The Maples (Mr. Kowalski), in a response to and advice to you with respect to the point of privilege raised earlier, I thought extremely eloquently put the question of honour, the question of integrity and what somebody should do with their word. I could quote extensively from the member for The Maples' speech, and perhaps for history, I should, but I will restrain myself because I believe the member for The Maples spoke from his heart with no political agenda attached to it. He said, I believe: I am a former policeman; if I give my word, my word is my bond and I am not prepared to break it.

Madam Speaker, I am not 100 percent sure, but I think the member for The Maples probably got in trouble for that because it may not well jibe with the position that the Liberal Party might want to take on this particular issue, but the fact of the matter is that is something that unfortunately does not happen all that often in here, that the political agenda seems to supersede what somebody really truly and honestly believes.

It became very, very quickly clear that the intent of the members of the New Democratic Party in this issue was to simply do everything in their power to try and block the government from doing its job, to try and block the passage of Bill 67, and they would use every single tactic they could think of to come into this House to try and block the legitimate business of the House.

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We have sat for four additional weeks. We sat evenings--[interjection] Well, if you consider that the two evenings we sat of four hours each are the equivalent of four days of sitting time, and they cannot deny that. They cannot; it is a fact. So, Madam Speaker, a period of four weeks, or four weeks' time, if that makes them happier, we have debated this single issue.

Madam Speaker, your ruling delivered November 21 provided the mechanism, the mechanism that is present in dealing with the question of the Speech from the Throne, where in fact the Speaker will interrupt at a certain time to put the question, regardless. The same thing occurs on the Budget Debate where there is a mechanism in the legislation. Unfortunately, and something that I clearly regret and take my share of the blame, quite frankly, as one of the authors, but nonetheless, unfortunately there was no mechanism with respect to bringing all government bills to a vote of third reading by the end of the fall sitting.

Madam Speaker, I asked you to rule on that matter and you did, as you properly should have, that that rule was meant to be enforced. It was an enforcement mechanism, not an invention of a rule, an enforcement mechanism for the rule that every single member in this House voted on. You did correctly, as you should have, to provide the House with the means, the mechanism, to deal with that rule. Just because the members opposite do not like the legislation does not mean that they can ignore the rule. It does not mean, if you do not like the law, you do not have to obey it. That is not the process.

Madam Speaker: Order, please. The honourable member for Thompson, on a point of order.

Mr. Ashton: Madam Speaker, coming from the government House leader, who yesterday participated in a situation where we saw at least our rules breached on 10 occasions, I find that not only offensive but I find it incredible. I would like to ask you to make sure that he is not only staying on the motion before us, the matter of privilege which deals very much with what happened yesterday when the government breached the rules on numerous occasions and you participated in that, I would like to ask you to not only call him to order but be factual because it is the government that has broken the rule book. He knows that. No amount of revisionist history can change that.

Madam Speaker: The honourable opposition House leader does not have a point of order. It is clearly a dispute over the facts.

Mr. Ernst: Madam Speaker, the member for Thompson quoted yesterday Beauchesne Citation 1. He quoted the first line of that citation that refers to the tyranny of the majority in any Parliament.

Madam Speaker, what we have seen in the delaying tactics, including frivolous points of order, the delaying tactics of the opposition including yesterday's histrionics in this House is the tyranny of the minority. In any democracy a duly elected government duly elected by the people must have the right to govern. We provided four additional weeks of time or time equivalent to four additional weeks--

Madam Speaker: Order, please. I would remind all honourable members that there are to be no exhibits. Our rules are very clear.

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Mr. Ashton: Point of order, Madam Speaker. There are no exhibits in this House. Given the situation yesterday where we were not given the opportunity to speak before four o'clock, I suppose some of us might have felt that the only way without involving the kind of situation we saw in the Legislature yesterday might be to express ourselves on an eight and a half by 11 sheet of paper. The reason I did that is I could not sit there and see the government House leader twist our rules, twist Beauchesne and the laws of Parliament and suggest that there was any tyranny in this House yesterday other than the tyranny of the majority of the MLAs of this House who denied us the rules to protect our right to speak at least 10 times.

These are not exhibits. If we are denied the right to speak, how else can we, as we did yesterday, do what we are doing other than what we do today? It is extremely frustrating for members of the opposition to sit here and hear these kinds of comments. These are not exhibits.

Madam Speaker: Order, please. The honourable member for Inkster, on the same point of order.

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Inkster): Madam Speaker, on the same point of order, I sit patiently to listen to the government House leader's arguments in terms of addressing the matter of privilege, which is a very serious matter. The concern that I have in the back of my mind that some attempt, something might happen in an attempt to cause the bells to ring. I, for one, do want to be able to address this matter of privilege and I would ask as much as possible that points of order be minimized, so the government House leader can say whatever it is that he wants to say in order to attempt to justify, but, ultimately, we, too, would like to get on the record on this very important issue.

Madam Speaker: The honourable opposition House leader does not have a point of order.

Mr. Ernst: Madam Speaker, we have seen delaying tactics. We have seen the kinds of things that are occurring today and occurred yesterday in this House, all of which are designed specifically to prevent the government from governing, which it was and is duly elected by the public to do.

Madam Speaker, Rule 66 of our provisional rules provides for certain motions to be made that take precedence over any other motion on the floor. In accordance with Rule 28, I move, seconded by the Minister of Environment (Mr. Cummings)

THAT the House now move to Orders of the Day.

Motion presented.

Madam Speaker: All those in favour of--

Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh.

Madam Speaker: Order, please.

All those in favour of the motion, please say yea.

Some Honourable Members: Yea.

Madam Speaker: All those opposed, please say nay.

Some Honourable Members: Nay.

Madam Speaker: In my opinion, the Yeas have it.

An Honourable Member: Yeas and Nays, Madam Speaker.

Madam Speaker: A recorded vote has been requested. Call in the members.

Madam Speaker: Order, please. According to our rules, the one-hour allocation has expired. I would request that the buzzers be shut off.

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The question before the House is that in accordance with Rule 28, this House now proceed to reading Orders of the Day.

A RECORDED VOTE was taken, the result being as follows:

Cummings, Derkach, Downey, Driedger, Dyck, Enns, Ernst, Filmon, Findlay, Gilleshammer, Helwer, Laurendeau, McAlpine, McCrae, McIntosh, Mitchelson, Newman, Pallister, Penner, Pitura, Praznik, Radcliffe, Reimer, Render, Rocan, Stefanson, Sveinson, Toews, Tweed, Vodrey.

Gaudry, Kowalski, Lamoureux.

Mr. Clerk (William Remnant): Yeas 30, Nays 3.

Madam Speaker: The motion is accordingly carried.