History
The first oral question occurred during the 1st Canadian Parliament, before rules had been established providing for formal questions. According to the record of debates for November 29, 1867, a question was posed to Chairman of the Printing Committee before Orders of the Day were called.
In the absence of formal rules, the Speaker of the House of Commons of Canada exerted great control over form, nature, and admissibility of questions. The first codification of formal rules to govern Question Period occurred in April 1964, and subsequent rule changes have been adopted; however, the opinion of the Speaker carries the most weight, as the actions of the Speaker set precedents when a new Point of Order or questions arises about practices during Question Period.
For a detailed discussion, see Robert Marleau and Camille Montpetit’s House of Commons Procedure and Practice.
Read more about this topic: Question Period
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Hence poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are rather of the nature of universals, whereas those of history are singulars.”
—Aristotle (384–322 B.C.)
“The history of the past is but one long struggle upward to equality.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)
“It gives me the greatest pleasure to say, as I do from the bottom of my heart, that never in the history of the country, in any crisis and under any conditions, have our Jewish fellow citizens failed to live up to the highest standards of citizenship and patriotism.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)