Unparliamentary language: withdrawal of remarks

Mr. Speaker: The difficulty that I am in—and I am sure that the honourable Member would want to co-operate with the Chair—is that our tradition and our practices are that if somebody has offended this House or offended a Member and said things that are clearly wrong, the responsibility then lies with the House to complain to the Speaker. If something is clearly wrong, the Speaker then orders a withdrawal or the Member can be expelled or the Member may not be recognized for a great deal of time. The Member in this case, as has been the practice, has apologized. Honourable Members clearly feel very strongly about the matter as perhaps so does the Speaker. I cannot allow, just because this is a hard case and hard cases can make very bad law, that a practice build up of continuing the debate. If the honourable Member wants to broaden the scope of the advisory committee which has been raised as a consequence of some sexist remarks, I invite the honourable Member to make representations to that effect. The honourable Member may remember that at the time when we had to deal with that, the Speaker made it very clear that there was more to this issue than just sexist remarks in this Chamber. Decorum does go beyond just sexist remarks. There can be other kinds of remarks that are equally offensive to all fair-minded and reasonable honourable Members. If the honourable Member wants to make a suggestion to me that this be considered, I will take it up with House Leaders. I ask the honourable Member to co-operate with the Chair and not extend the debate over the actual exchange, which has been withdrawn. Postscript Neither the written nor electronic Hansard has any record of Mr. Shields' remarks. F0721-e 34-3 1991-10-09. [1] Debates, October 9, 1991, p. 3515. [2] The Special Advisory Committee to the Speaker referred to by Mr. McCurdy was an unofficial committee composed of Members from all the recognized parties and chaired by the Deputy Speaker. It began its study in November 1991 and reported to the Speaker in June 1992. The report was then transmitted to the House Leaders of the parties by the Speaker. No official action was taken on its recommendations. [3] Debates, October 9, 1991, pp. 3515-6.