Parliament not pussyfooting around

A comment by Lothan Cousins, member of parliament for Clarendon South Western that the Government should stop “pussyfooting around” and start putting plans into action in relation to the agriculture sector was met with alarm and dismay by Speaker of the House Marisa Dalrymple Philibert, who quickly ruled that the utterance was unparliamentary.

“I am sure I did not hear what I hear,” said Dalrymple Philibert, who muted her mike and apparently instructed Cousins to withdraw the comment.

Cousins said if the Speaker was offended by his comment he would withdraw it.

“It is not that ‘If I am so offended’. I want to remind you and all of us that this is the highest court of the land and that word is inappropriate to be used in here. That is my ruling,” a peeved House Speaker charged.

But Opposition Leader Mark Golding rose on a point of order to challenge the Speaker’s ruling, pointing out that the word pussyfooting was not obscene but meant ‘act in a cautious or non-committal way’.

“That’s what it means,” he said.

He argued that asking Cousins to withdraw a word that is “plain English” and was not offensive or derogatory was inappropriate, in his view.

However, the Speaker refused to budge, noting that “every judge that sits in this country would not put up with it”.

She dared Golding, who is an attorney at law, to “go in any court and speak to any judge about pussyfooting around”.

Golding conceded that such a comment to a judge would be inappropriate. However, he noted that Cousins was making a general comment that “we need to stop pussyfooting around and get to action to solve the problem …”.

However, the Speaker was unmoved by Golding’s clarification, insisting that “this is the highest court of the land and I have closed the argument”.

Cousins was making his contribution to the Sectoral Debate in Parliament.

The Concise Oxford English Dictionary defines Pussyfoot as:

To act in an excessively cautious or non-committal way; move stealthily.