After Tuesday’s scuffle between the President of the National Assembly, Nathalie Roy, and the solidarity MP Christine Labrie who accused the State of Quebec of participating in “economic violence” against public sector workers, the words ” exploit women” will be added to the list of unparliamentary remarks.
The information was confirmed at The Canadian Press by the National Assembly. Thursday, on her Facebook page, the solidarity MP wrote: “it will henceforth be forbidden to tell the Salon Bleu that the State exploits its workers. It’s a shame that it’s not forbidden to exploit them instead.”
She then appealed to everyone. “I need your vocabulary suggestions to talk about what you experience when you are imposed compulsory overtime, when you work unpaid hours, when you are kept precarious, when you are led to exhaustion by increasing your workload, and so on,” listed the member for Sherbrooke.
On Tuesday, Christine Labrie provoked strong reactions at the Salon Bleu, by asserting that “three quarters of the people who work in our public services are women. Why does the CAQ persist in exploiting them?”
The President of the Assembly, Nathalie Roy, had to ask him twice to withdraw his “unworthy comments”. Mme Labrie finally complied, grumbling.
It should be noted that words deemed unparliamentary are not completely prohibited at the Salon bleu. “The presidency has all the latitude to interpret and qualify the comments made by a member of parliament having regard to the circumstances. There are no absolute criteria. The presidency’s judgment depends on the nature of the remarks and the context in which they were made,” indicated the spokesperson for the Assembly, Béatrice Zacharie, by email.
“As for the comments made by the member for Sherbrooke (…), it is the assertion to the effect that the government exploits the women whose presidency has demanded the withdrawal,” she added.
The National Assembly notably prohibits an elected official from attributing unworthy motives to a colleague, from using violent language, from making threats or from making seditious remarks.