Search thousands of Speaker's rulings with AI-powered precision.
October 22, 1975
Although "the House guards the confidentiality of draft reports at this stage of a committee's proceedings and the publication of such a report would raise the strongest suggestion that some act...
The Speaker denied a motion for one committee to investigate a joint committee's leaked report, ruling it procedurally irregular and lacking a specific allegation of misconduct.
June 4, 1975
The strict definition of parliamentary privilege should not be expanded to include controversies as to facts, opinions or conclusions. These are matters for debate; they are not questions of...
This ruling establishes that disagreements over facts are matters for debate, not privilege, and that a specific charge is required to raise a question of privilege against a Member.
April 14, 1975
Questions / Oral Questions April 14, 1975 Journals pp. 439-41 Debates pp. 4762-4 Background On April 7, 1975, an experiment in procedure, designating a fixed time for the Question Period, began....
Analysis failed as the provided text was not a Speaker's Ruling.
November 16, 1974
The precedents "tend to establish in the main that statements made outside the House, or documents published elsewhere, ought not to be used for the purpose of questioning statements made in this...
The Speaker rules that disputes over facts or statements made outside Parliament are matters for debate, not questions of privilege.
May 8, 1974
As has been stated on many occasions in the past, "it might be very unwise for the House to decide that proceedings in one committee be investigated by another committee". It is not procedurally...
The Speaker rules that committee proceedings can only be brought to the House via a formal report and takes the question of a committee's power to compel documents under advisement.
March 21, 1974
"The Speaker has no other responsibility than determining whether there is a prima facie question of privilege which later on could be submitted to the House in the form of a motion." The present...
The Speaker denies a prima facie question of privilege, ruling the issue is a grievance to be addressed through other parliamentary avenues.
March 18, 1974
No motion was proposed by the Member either in his notice or in his speech. More important, the matter being raised took place 10 days ago, and there can hardly be a question of privilege in such...
The Speaker denied a question of privilege because it was not raised in a timely manner and the impugned statement was not unparliamentary.
December 19, 1973
"... difficulties which come up in committee, to the extent they are procedural difficulties, ought to be settled there rather than in the House". The Member's motion, which does not refer the...
The Speaker ruled that a Member's motion on committee business was a substantive motion requiring 48-hours' notice, not a question of privilege.
December 4, 1973
"It is well-established practice that committee proceedings cannot be brought into consideration or debate in the House except by way of a report from the committee." It is also well established...
The Speaker ruled that committee proceedings and member conduct cannot be raised in the House via a question of privilege and must be presented through a formal committee report.
September 4, 1973
There is no doubt that Members should not be placed in a position where, in their absence from their offices, representatives of the police without any authority could enter the offices and...
In a landmark 1973 ruling, the Speaker established that unauthorized police entry into an MP's office constitutes a prima facie breach of parliamentary privilege.