Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to rise on a point of order under clause 23(k) with regard to the use of insulting and abusive language and (l) speaking disrespectfully of Her Majesty, any member of the Royal Family, his Excellency the Governor General, the Commissioner, the Assembly or any Member.
I rise on that point, Mr. Speaker, because I listened with great interest and intensity to the exchange between Mr. Hawkins and Minister Beaulieu yesterday. I listened carefully to the volume, tone and content of the exchange. I am of the opinion that when you look at those three items with the type of discourse and exchange that happened, the comments by Mr. Hawkins are contrary to our rules of order, hence my point.
I wanted to look at Hansard, which I did, and I’m rising on my first opportunity to speak. I want to refer to page 27 of unedited Hansard from yesterday during one of the exchanges in a question to Mr. Beaulieu. Keep in mind the volume, tone and content. Mr. Hawkins said, “Who is in charge of this department and if he isn’t, come on over here. We’ll welcome you back in great arms because we’ll put someone over there that can do the job because this Minister doesn’t.” Same page, second question: “Again, I ask the Minister of Health and Social Services, other than doing nothing, put something on the table that he’s truly done to improve the lives of Northerners, or get out of Cabinet because you don’t belong there.” It was clearly a very aggressive and insulting tone of voice, in my mind.
Then when you go to page 28, Mr. Speaker, the Minister, near the end of this last question, was attempting to respond and in Hansard it says “Interjection.” That interjection was the Member for Yellowknife Centre interrupting the Member, Mr. Speaker. Immediately following that interjection, you, yourself, cautioned Mr. Hawkins, “Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Hawkins. Member for Yellowknife...” Right after that, there’s another interjection, which was Mr. Hawkins once again speaking off mic but interrupting you, yourself, Mr. Speaker.
We appreciate frank and earnest debate, the give and take, the repartee and the parry and thrust of discourse, but there are limits in this Chamber. We pride ourselves on the decorum of this House, the propriety of the way we do business. We hold ourselves above the other Legislatures.
The point of order has been contravened; our rules have been contravened. I think this was beyond what is acceptable in this Legislature; hence, my point of order. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. I’m going to allow some debate on this point of order. Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate Minister Miltenberger bringing this forward for some type of public discussion and I certainly welcome it. At the same time, this would be the same Minister telling me in the back hallway right after that exchange that he was thinking about calling a point of order just to calm me down. Now, that’s a conversation we had; hence, his point and, hence, his point of order here today.
Mr. Speaker, the issue of volume and tone, I think, is quite exaggerated. I think one is not identifying the passion and concerns about seeing issues ignored, repeatedly brought to the table and I think that’s confusing. It’s normal in any parliamentary process to have discourse amongst sides. The fact is if decorum is changed and elevated to an ever-so-slight level that is recognizable of whisper, whisper there, whisper back here, people think we aren’t doing our jobs and Cabinet, in my experience, thinks we’re picking on them.
I’m sorry, Mr. Speaker, I don’t disagree with the fact that… It’s almost saying you can’t raise your concerns, elevate your concerns with your passion. I’m here to do my job and demand results, Mr. Speaker, and sometimes that does cause one to raise the energy in the debate.
Quite frankly, I can’t sit here and ignore the lack of results and Cabinet sit over there and expect we don’t call them out when they don’t do their job. They find that offensive and rude, and I certainly welcome another point of order if they want to keep calling it on those types of things. It’s very frustrating on this side of the House. I have every right to say to the Minister, in my view, that if he doesn’t do his job, and I look right at him again and say, if you don’t want to do your job, you can come over here. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your guidance on that. What I’m trying to say is I have every right to call the Ministers out for not doing their job. The public demands it and I’m sorry if it hurts the feelings of Cabinet, but I stand by the fact that this passion must be brought to the job and sometimes it raises the tone and elevates the volume of the job. If they all want to stand up in successive order and say they don’t like it, I’m sorry; they’re going to have to live with it in some capacity. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. To the point of order. Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will take the opportunity to stand up as somebody who has been in this House for a long time and has heard a lot of exchanges, and has been known to spar and argue and fight with the best of them on the other side of the House, but, Mr. Speaker, I did find Mr. Hawkins’ comments, questions to Mr. Beaulieu yesterday to be offensive and it did, in my opinion, reduce the demeanor of our House.
Mr. Hawkins was asking Minister Beaulieu questions you really couldn’t answer, like can you do your job. Some of it is even what I would put in the context of asking him for an opinion and the tone was disrespectful and it was demeaning. There was no answer that Mr. Beaulieu could have reasonably provided to those questions. I tried to project myself in that position and if I was being asked those questions, there is no reasonable response when you’re under that kind of attack.
Like I said, I’ve stood up and berated Ministers before. I’ve told them everything I think about them, but I don’t think that it was done in a way that… I like lively debates in this House too. Sometimes it does seem a little dull in here, a little dead, but I think that the tone, the words, the questions that were posed to Mr. Beaulieu yesterday, there was no reasonable response he could have possibly made. Whether Mr. Beaulieu is doing his job or not is entirely a subjective observation and I think there are ways of communicating it without degrading each other. That’s all I’ll say about it. Thank you.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. To the point of order. I will take this under advisement and bring it back to the House sometime before the end of session. Thank you.
