Madam Speaker: Order, please. I have a ruling for the House.

I took under advisement on May 29 a point of order raised by the opposition House leader (Mr. Ashton) about whether the word “arrogant” is parliamentary or unparliamentary.

On May 29 I had not ruled whether the word “arrogant” was parliamentary or unparliamentary; I had offered a caution to the opposition House leader suggesting that the language he was using was not helpful in maintaining the decorum in and dignity of the House. He asked whether the word was being ruled unparliamentary because in the past it had been used in the Chamber and because Beauchesne indicated that it had been ruled to be in order to use the word.

I would like to draw the attention of the House to Beauchesne Citation 491 which states that no language is by virtue of any list, acceptable or unacceptable. A word which is parliamentary in one context may cause disorder in another context, and therefore be unparliamentary. Beauchesne Citation 486(1) advises that it is impossible to lay down any specific rules in regard to injurious reflections uttered in debate against members or to declare beforehand what expressions are or are not contrary to order; much depends upon the tone and manner and intention of the person speaking; sometimes upon the degree of provocation which the member speaking had received from the person alluded to; and all these considerations must be attended to at the moment, as they are infinitely various and cannot possibly be foreseen in such a manner that precise rules can be adopted with respect to them. Citation 486(3) of Beauchesne makes the point that there are few words that have been judged to be unparliamentary consistently, and that any list of unparliamentary words is only a compilation of words that at some time have been found to cause disorder in the House.

Having reviewed previous Manitoba Speakers' rulings, I would advise that on January 24, 1990, the Manitoba Speaker ruled the word out of order and the member who used the word was asked to withdraw. The opposition House leader was correct in his observation that there have been occasions when the word “arrogant” has been used in this House in the past without intervention of a Speaker. However, the Beauchesne citations cited earlier in this ruling and our past practices of this House clearly indicate that whether a word is parliamentary depends very much on the context in which a word was used.

Therefore, there was no point of order.