Madam Speaker: I have two rulings for the House.

The honourable member for Inkster (Mr. Lamoureux), on May 13, raised a matter of privilege and moved “that this matter be taken into consideration by the Speaker and report back to the House.”

In speaking to the matter of privilege the honourable member for Inkster quoted a portion of page 74 of the Manitoba rules, and I quote: “Wilful disobedience to orders and rules of Parliament in the exercise of its constitutional functions, insults and obstructions during debate are breaches of the privileges of the House.”

He also referenced a portion of Citation 1 from Beauchesne, in particular that among the principles of Canadian parliamentary law are the principles of securing the transaction of public business in an orderly manner and of enabling every member to express opinions within limits necessary to preserve decorum and prevent an unnecessary waste of time.

My understanding of the basis of the member's matter of privilege was that the moving of a motion to adjourn the House during Question Period and the ensuing challenge to the Speaker's ruling the motion out of order and the resulting ringing of division bells for a period of time, was a breach of the privileges of the House.

Joseph Maingot, in his book Parliamentary Privilege in Canada, on page 13 says that allegations of a breach of privilege by a member which amount to complaints about procedure and practices in the House are by their very nature matters of order.

Questions of order are not generally considered to be matters of privilege. However, our provisional Rule 16 indicates that persistent and wilful obstruction of the House could lead to a member being named by the Speaker. I do not believe the honourable member for Inkster has made a case that the honourable member for Thompson (Mr. Ashton) moved the adjournment motion and called for the ringing of the bells in a manner which could be construed as a wilful disobedience of the rules of this House, nor was it in a repetitive or persistent manner.

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A matter of privilege regarding bell ringing was dealt with by Speaker Walding in February of 1984. I would like to quote from that ruling where he stated: “Since our rules and precedents have not been disobeyed, it is difficult to argue a matter of privilege on these grounds. . . . Thus the use of the rules cannot be considered a matter of privilege, but the abuse of the rules may be.”

In my estimation, as I indicated earlier, I am not of the opinion that the rules were abused by the honourable member for Thompson (Mr. Ashton). Therefore I must rule that the honourable member for Inkster (Mr. Lamoureux) has failed to establish a prima facie case, and accordingly I rule his motion out of order.

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On May 14, 1996, the opposition House leader raised a point of order about words spoken by the honourable Minister of Education (Mrs. McIntosh), both from her seat and on the record. In order to check Hansard and to listen to the audiotapes of the House proceedings, I took the matter under advisement.

Hansard shows that the Minister of Education said, “The member implied that bombs and slashed tires are not real. They are real. We experienced them in our own household.”

I must inform the House that while listening to the tapes, due to the extreme disorder it was difficult to hear who said what. I realize that in this Chamber individual members may often hear comments made by other members that are not audible enough on the tape to be printed by Hansard. Procedurally, the Speaker must use the official Hansard record.

Based on what appears in Hansard and what I was able to hear on the tapes, I am ruling there was no point of order.