Mr. Speaker, I do not think it is without precedent to treat a motion on the notice paper as something that should concern the privileges of the House. I would remind the Speaker for example that if someone were to place something on the notice paper that said they had lost confidence in the Speaker, even though it is on the notice paper, the House would be seized with it. Whether it has been called or not is not the issue. The issue is it is a threat over the head of the House in the case of non-confidence in the Speaker.
In the same way, I think this motion does hang as a sword over the rights and privileges of all members of parliament and I will explain that in some depth. I believe that the motion violates the first principle of parliamentary law because it targets the minority groups in the House. It takes away the privileges of the minority while leaving in tact the privileges of the cabinet.
The preamble to the Constitution Act, 1867 and section 18 of the act provides that the privileges, immunities and powers of the House of Commons and of its members are those of the British House of Commons and can only be defined by an act of parliament. Thus they cannot be suspended, altered or diminished by simply passing a motion here in the House of Commons dealing with those privileges.
A member's right to propose amendments, call concurrence motions and vote is a well established right that indisputably makes up part of the powers enjoyed by individual members of parliament. It is a constitutional democracy and the right of members to vote is fundamental and goes to the very heart of our parliamentary system.
The preamble to the Constitution Act, 1867 refers to a constitution similar in principle to that of the United Kingdom. A 1993 Supreme Court of Canada decision in New Brunswick Broadcasting Corporation v Nova Scotia confirmed the constitutional nature of parliamentary privilege on that very basis.
Many of the powers and privileges of members of this House are the result of centuries of practice and convention. The courts have clearly recognized that conventions are part of our constitution. Our legislative procedures, including voting on amendments, are part of our historic heritage, our parliamentary traditions and, indeed, the privileges collectively of the House and individually of its members.
If Motion No. 8 were allowed to be moved, if it even gets to that, and were adopted it raises the question, what can this House not do by majority vote? I submit that it would constitute a very dangerous precedent. Even if there were a way to achieve the government's objective of trying to affect votes in the House, I would argue that could only be done by means of a statute, not by a mere motion that takes away the rights that we have gained collectively over the centuries and decades by convention and historic practice.
The Supreme Court of Canada ruled in 1985 that the requirement of section 133 of the Constitution Act, 1867 and of section 23 of the Manitoba Act, 1870 respecting the use of both the English and French languages in the records and journals of the Houses of Parliament is mandatory and must be obeyed. Accordingly, the House can no longer depart from its own code of procedure when considering a practice protected by the constitution.
We had two similar cases in the last parliament regarding committees. On June 20, 1994 and November 7, 1996 the Speaker ruled that “while it is a tradition of this House that committees are masters of their own proceedings, they cannot establish procedures which go beyond the powers conferred upon them by the House”. If we are to be consistent, I would point out that while this House is a master of its own proceedings, it cannot establish procedures which go beyond the powers conferred on it by the constitution.
The last point I want you to consider, Mr. Speaker, is the very first principle of parliamentary law, as set out in Beauchesne's. Beauchesne's states that the principles of parliamentary law are “to protect a minority and to restrain the improvidence or tyranny of a majority”.
Motion No. 8 targets the opposition. It is no secret that Motion No. 8 is designed, in part, to deal with Bill C-20. Virtually every motion to amend Bill C-20 is in the name of a member of a minority party. While Motion No. 8 would restrict the minority, it leaves in tact a cabinet minister's right to propose amendments.
In addition, independent members and independent minded members of recognized political parties would also fall victim to this motion. The motion presupposes that every member has a right to move amendments at committee. As you are aware, Mr. Speaker, independent members are rarely members of committees. Independent minded Liberal members are often thrown off committees or removed by the whip because of their independence.
I recall when certain Liberal members voted against the gun control bill. The very next day those members were moved off the committee by the government whip and other people were moved into their place.
The other consideration is the fact that the government runs roughshod over the opposition in committees, which often seriously hampers the opposition in its ability to move amendments in those committees.
Motion No. 8 is offensive. It is an affront to all opposition members, independent members and independent minded members of all parties of the House. Mr. Speaker, it is your duty to defend their rights against the government majority. You cannot allow the majority to deny the minority its right to propose and vote on motions. Because of the situation in committees, you have to be the guardian of the rights of the minority and independent members of the House.
Although Motion No. 8 was designed with Bill C-20 and the Bloc in mind, it affects every bill that will be considered in the House and restricts independent members and members of all parties. The government cannot continue to upset the balance between the opposition and the government.
On April 14, 1987, in response to a Liberal complaint about the bullying tactics of the day, it was said: “It is essential to our democratic system that controversial issues should be debated at reasonable length so that every reasonable opportunity shall be available to hear the arguments pro and con, and that reasonable delaying tactics should be permissible to enable opponents of a measure to enlist public support for their point of view”.
Stanley Knowles, a former member and table officer of this place, once said:
The opposition has only the rules for its protection, hence the authorities on parliamentary process emphasize the great importance to the opposition of the only protection it has, the protection of the rules. Only by according such rights to the opposition is it possible to achieve anything even approaching equality of strength between the two sides.
The government wants to drastically change our procedures and upset the balance between the opposition and the government. It is attempting to destroy that balance of strength which Mr. Knowles and Speaker Fraser addressed.
I cannot emphasize how important this principle is to this institution. It cannot function without some semblance of balance between the role of the opposition and the role of the government.
The reason this House is becoming dysfunctional is because the government no longer seems to support that principle of balance. It did while in opposition, but it has since abandoned respect for balance in this parliament. The government has invoked closure or time allocation 62 times. It bypasses members by making announcements outside the House. It routinely leaks information intended for this House. Now it is suggesting a measure that goes too far to solve a problem that is a response to the government's own way of handling issues in the House.
Mr. Speaker, I would ask you to consider how Motion No. 8 targets the minority with respect to committee concurrence motions. Again, a cabinet minister could restrict opposition members, and backbench members of all parties, by deeming the debate on a concurrence motion adjourned simply by rising on a point of order. Even if a member has the support of the majority of members of the House for the concurrence of a committee report, that member could not, without the consent of a cabinet minister, obtain that support for the motion. The cabinet then would have seized control of one of the last few remaining procedures that backbench members of parliament enjoy on both sides of the House.
All that would remain is Private Members' Business. The rules of private members are already so restricted that very few members of parliament ever get their issue on to the floor for debate, and even a smaller number get an actual vote on the issues they bring forward.
I would like to quote an MLA from the Nova Scotia House of Assembly. Mr. Holm said on January 26, 1995:
There is an old saying that holds as true today as it has forever in parliamentary democracy; the government opens the legislature and the opposition closes it. That truth is no more evident than it is right now. There is opportunity for compromise, for working together. We won't get everything we want as opposition; the government will probably get most of what it wants. The opportunity is there but we have to start anew with a relationship that will work.
I hope the government will seek another remedy that we can all work with and buy into on both sides of the House. Until that spirit of compromise and working together to make this place more functional, more winsome to the Canadian public, exists, I would ask, Mr. Speaker, that you take this question of privilege seriously. If you do not find that there is a prima facie question of privilege, I urge you to at least consider my comments as a point of order and remove Motion No. 8 from the order paper. I think it is offensive and an affront to the House, an affront to the workings of how this place should function.
This place functions because we work together as men and women who want to work together for the betterment of the country. With Motion No. 8 hanging over the heads of all members of the House, backbenchers on both sides, I do not think that spirit of co-operation or that spirit of balance between the rights of the opposition and the right of the government exists. That balance has to be restored and maintained so that opposition members are not singled out as people who not only do not carry the agenda forward, but are not even heard in this place.