Good afternoon, colleagues. Before we get started today, I will provide my ruling on the point of order raised by Mr. Abernethy yesterday, June 5, 2013, regarding comments made by Mr. Dolynny which were perceived to impute false or hidden motives and were viewed as allegations against Mr. Abernethy. As Members are aware, a point of order must be raised at the earliest opportunity and I find that Mr. Abernethy did, in fact, raise the point of order at the earliest opportunity.
I have now had the opportunity to review the unedited transcripts from yesterday and wish to bring focus to the remarks which gave rise to the point of order.
Mr. Dolynny, in speaking about the new downtown Yellowknife office building, expressed concerns about responses he had received from the Minister’s office to requests for information pertaining to the terms and conditions of the construction contract. Mr. Dolynny indicated his ‘shock’ at finding, “the department wanted to charge me $1,477.75 to photocopy a whopping 1,992 pages of documents.” He then went on to describe this as, “nothing more than a document dump and a ridiculous charge to ward off a Member of this government the right to get answers to simple questions and to protect the public purse.” He also coloured this response as a “recurrent theme” which he sees “all too often.” He went on to state: “It almost appears that this government has a history of document dumping and fee shock to scare off would-be inquiries,” and, “now appears to be the tactics used on an elected Member of this House.” It was shortly after these remarks that Mr. Abernethy rose on his point of order.
Mr. Abernethy’s point was that Mr. Dolynny, by questioning the responses received from the department, was directly questioning his motives with regard to the capital project under discussion
and the process to be adhered to in requesting information relative to the project. I will quote Mr. Abernethy in stating his point of order found on page 13 of the unedited Hansard for Wednesday, June 5, 2013: “…the Member for Range Lake has suggested that we are impeding his ability to get detailed information to do his job.” He went on to say: “…the Member is suggesting that we are intentionally trying to keep information from him, which is not the case.”
In reviewing these comments, I examined closely the rules cited by Mr. Abernethy in his point of order, and in doing so, I considered the following questions: Did Mr. Dolynny make an allegation against Mr. Abernethy? Did he impute false or hidden motives to him?
I find the answers to both of these questions is, clearly, no. Mr. Dolynny made no direct allegations against Mr. Abernethy. I also fail to see where the comments imputed a false or hidden motive to him. I do not find that Mr. Dolynny’s remarks were directed specifically at Mr. Abernethy, nor do I find they questioned Mr. Abernethy’s personal integrity, honesty or character. Therefore, I find there is no point of order.
I wish to thank all Members who offered their views on the point of order. I particularly appreciate the respectful and balanced tone of the discussion. Thank you, Members.
