Mr. Speaker, I am also raising the question of privilege in relation to the actions of the government House leader in tabling with the Journals Branch on March 1 a motion which infringes on the rights and privileges of this House.
I am not asking you to rule as to whether or not the motion is in order, but rather on the action by the government House leader in putting on the Order Paper a motion violating the privileges of the members of this House.
This is, in my opinion, an attempt to extinguish or render meaningless one of the most fundamental privileges of a British type parliamentary system. Contrary to tradition, without consulting the opposition, the government House leader has introduced a motion to change the rules of the House for the rest of the current session.
By raising a point of order, this motion would enable the government to shut down debate in the House even before a member has finished speaking to his or her motion. The motion would be transferred to Government Orders and the debate would be resumed as the government saw fit, which would likely mean never.
Worse yet, this motion is intended, to all intents and purposes, to prevent the members of the opposition from proposing amendments at the report stage in the House. No amendment would be selected for consideration at the report stage if it was or could have been proposed and been deemed in order in committee.
In practice, this means that no amendment at report stage can be selected for consideration, except amendments to delete clauses of bills.
Moreover, the motion provides that the total number of amendments to the bill that may be received shall not exceed the number of clauses, preambles and schedules contained in the bill. Each member can propose only one amendment.
There are always exceptions, of course, and these restrictions do not apply to ministers. That is disgusting.
This motion is an unprecedented violation of the rights and privileges of the members of this House.
Until now, members of the House of Commons had some guarantees that allowed them to freely express themselves on the appropriateness of government measures. These guarantees are provided by the standing orders, the conventions and the practices of the House.
The protection of the rights of the opposition is one of the most fundamental unwritten rules.
The contemporary role of the House of Commons is to monitor government action. Members must have the opportunity to question and to criticize freely, constantly and publicly the government and the measures that it proposes to the House. Any infringement on the role of a member diminishes the useful role of the House of Commons as a democratic institution.
The right to propose amendments and to debate motions to adopt committee reports are critical tools to allow members to exercise the most important privilege granted to them.
According to Marleau and Montpetit, at page 261, and I quote:
Freedom of speech...a fundamental right without which they would be hampered in the performance of their duties. It permits them to speak in the House without inhibition, to refer to any matter or express any opinion as they see fit, to say what they feel needs to be said in the furtherance of the national interest and the aspirations of their constituents.
The Leader of the Government in the House would want to transform parliament into a docile and partisan instrument, this for the rest of the session. He would want to transform parliament into a servile and insignificant institution, which would merely rubber stamp the government's decisions and policies.
This motion would infringe on the authority of the Chair to decide in an impartial manner whether an amendment is admissible at the report stage of bills, as provided in Standing Orders 76(5) and 76.1(5).
According to Marleau and Montpetit, at page 668, and I quote:
Under the Standing Order, the Speaker thus has the power to select or group motions in amendment to be proposed at report stage.
This decision leaves him a certain discretion that he must exercise with the utmost impartiality. If Motion No. 8, standing in the name of the government House leader, were to come before the House, this would mean that he could no longer exercise this discretion and protect the right of members to introduce amendments.
On page 299 of Droit constitutionnel , Brun and Tremblay state as follows:
In enforcing the Standing Orders, the Speaker sets aside his political persona in order to perform a neutral and impartial function. This flows from tradition.
With the government House leader's motion, the Speaker's hands would be tied and he would be forced to reject all amendments at report stage because motions that were in order in committee could no longer be ruled in order at report stage by the Speaker.
With this motion, the Speaker could no longer serve the House and its members. He would become nothing more than a ceremonial presence in the House. This would be a dangerous precedent that could jeopardize the democratic operation of the House.
If this motion were to come before the House, it would violate the integrity and the very dignity of this place because it would have a direct negative impact on members' duties.
This motion infringes the rights of parliamentarians to express their views and to do their work properly.
As Maingot wrote on page 26 of Parliamentary Privilege in Canada :
The privilege of freedom of speech, though of a personal nature, is not so much intended to protect the Members against prosecutions for their own individual advantage, but to support the rights of the people by enabling their representatives to execute the functions of their office without fear of either civil or criminal prosecutions. One of the first and greatest of its privileges is free speech and one of the advantages of legislative bodies is the right of exposing and denouncing abuses by means of free speech.
By tabling his motion on Wednesday, March 1, the government House leader's sole intention was to block members' rights to criticize and oppose government measures. It was his intention to compromise the most important privilege of the members of this House, the freedom of speech.
In addition, placing this motion on the Order Paper represents a threat to the House and the members of the opposition.
With this motion, the government House leader is sending the following message to the House and more specifically to the opposition members “You would be well advised to table no more amendments at report stage, otherwise I will prevent you from doing so for the rest of this session”.
With this motion, the government House leader is saying he is prepared to limit the powers of the Chair and to jeopardize the rights and privileges of the members of this House if they disagree with the Chair. This is contempt of the House.
It is therefore your duty to consider the action taken by the government House leader a threat to the rights and privileges of the members and contempt of this House.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I appeal to your impartiality and to your sense of justice and democracy. You are the last bastion against the arbitrariness of the government majority in this House. Without your energetic intervention, parliament could become a totally meaningless institution.
I am prepared, with your authority, to table a motion of privilege in order to refer this matter to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs for consideration.