The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): I want to briefly comment on the event that transpired during the vote on Bill 175. It is the responsibility of each member to be in his or her own seat for a recorded vote in the House. Failure to be standing in your place equates to an abstention, which is acceptable under our rules. That members of your own caucus, with your apparent permission, occupy your seats leaves me little sympathy and virtually no choice but to consider that you are abstaining. In short, you cannot contrive a breach of your own privileges.

Mr. Robert W. Runciman: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: I do not wish to challenge your comment, although that is not a ruling as such; it's just giving your reaction to what occurred. But, I think, from our perspective, the vote on Bill 175 is invalid. We have not had an opportunity to go back and look at a number of precedents, but just quickly looking at Beauchesne's, on page 76, it indicates that a member who wishes to participate must be in his own seat or cannot participate in the vote.

What I'm indicating to you, Speaker, is that the members who were denied the opportunity to vote because their seats were occupied-it's not their responsibility, in our view, for those seats to be available to them. They were elected to occupy those seats. It is the Speaker's responsibility to ensure that those seats are available and that those members are allowed to participate in the votes. So we consider the vote to be invalid, Speaker.

Hon. Monique M. Smith: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: I would support your comments earlier with respect to this particular issue. I would also indicate that in fact the two members involved are part of a party. They are not independent members and they are not strangers to this House, occupying seats, but are members of a party that have a leader and a House leader and have the ability to govern themselves accordingly. I would just point out to you that they do have the ability to do this.

Mr. Gerry Martiniuk: On a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker: I was sitting in my seat. I did not have the privilege of voting on behalf of my 200,000 constituents. I was denied the right to vote, though I was sitting in my proper seat ready to vote. I take strong objection to that. I realize there was a great deal of confusion. However, I have been denied and my constituents have been denied the right to vote in this chamber, and that has never happened before. It is a precedent that I hope is never followed.

Hansard-Official Historical Record of
 Debate in the Legislative Assembly of
 Ontario – 39th Parliament
Presented by: GERRY MARTINIUK, MPP
Dec. 1, 2009