Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order, reflecting on what took place earlier today in question period. I seek the advice and guidance of the Chair regarding the question that was put forward.

When we come up with a question, all members are very much aware that we have 30 seconds in which to express the question. When we pose the question, there is often a significant preamble to it.

The Speaker knew that I might have been 10 or 15 seconds into the question, so I was not sure why he was standing up. I had to sit down, and I was a bit surprised by the Speaker determining that the topic of the question might not have been the federal government's responsibility.

I can appreciate that the Speaker will be able to review the Hansard, but I thought that this information might assist him in providing a comment on the question that I posed. As I am sure the Speaker is aware, foster care is in a very serious situation. The wording that I chose to use in my preamble about it being a crisis situation is the way it is being labelled in the province of Manitoba today. We are talking about how indigenous people of first nations and aboriginal heritage make up in excess of 90% of the more than 10,000 children who are in foster care. That is then a crisis situation.

My question, which I was not afforded the opportunity to ask, was related to the importance of the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development indicating to the House what the Government of Canada is doing about the crisis situation, given that we are talking about around 90% of children in foster care having a first nations or aboriginal background. That is the federal government's responsibility.

I was 10 or 15 seconds into the question, and I suspect there was quite a bit of heckling on the other side. In fairness to the Speaker, perhaps he did not hear all of the comments. I appreciate that he is looking into it, but I am looking for his guidance and some sort of indication as to what I did wrong. Had I been able to finish the question, I would have made reference to the 10,000-plus children, of which 90% have a first nations background. It is very similar to the question I asked yesterday, so I would ask the Speaker to take the point of order as notice so that he can reflect on it.

He indicated to me earlier that he would review what was said, so this is just more add-on information in the hope that we will get some sort of clarification.

Kevin Lamoureux

$491,080.00