Bill C-45 (Historical)

Jobs and Growth Act, 2012

A second Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 29, 2012 and other measures

Part 1 implements certain income tax measures and related measures proposed in the March 29, 2012 budget. Most notably, it
(a) amends the rules relating to Registered Disability Savings Plans (RDSPs) by
(i) replacing the 10-year repayment rule applying to withdrawals with a proportional repayment rule,
(ii) allowing investment income earned in a Registered Education Savings Plan (RESP) to be transferred on a tax-free basis to the RESP beneficiary’s RDSP,
(iii) extending the period that RDSPs of beneficiaries who cease to qualify for the Disability Tax Credit may remain open in certain circumstances,
(iv) amending the rules relating to maximum and minimum withdrawals, and
(v) amending certain RDSP administrative rules;
(b) includes an employer’s contributions to a group sickness or accident insurance plan in an employee’s income in certain circumstances;
(c) amends the rules applicable to retirement compensation arrangements;
(d) amends the rules applicable to Employees Profit Sharing Plans;
(e) expands the eligibility for the accelerated capital cost allowance for clean energy generation equipment to include a broader range of bioenergy equipment;
(f) phases out the Corporate Mineral Exploration and Development Tax Credit;
(g) phases out the Atlantic Investment Tax Credit for activities related to the oil and gas and mining sectors;
(h) provides that qualified property for the purposes of the Atlantic Investment Tax Credit will include certain electricity generation equipment and clean energy generation equipment used primarily in an eligible activity;
(i) amends the Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SR&ED) investment tax credit by
(i) reducing the general SR&ED investment tax credit rate from 20% to 15%,
(ii) reducing the prescribed proxy amount, which taxpayers use to claim SR&ED overhead expenditures, from 65% to 55% of the salaries and wages of employees who are engaged in SR&ED activities,
(iii) removing the profit element from arm’s length third-party contracts for the purpose of the calculation of SR&ED tax credits, and
(iv) removing capital from the base of eligible expenditures for the purpose of the calculation of SR&ED tax incentives;
(j) introduces rules to prevent the avoidance of corporate income tax through the use of partnerships to convert income gains into capital gains;
(k) clarifies that transfer pricing secondary adjustments are treated as dividends for the purposes of withholding tax imposed under Part XIII of the Income Tax Act;
(l) amends the thin capitalization rules by
(i) reducing the debt-to-equity ratio from 2:1 to 1.5:1,
(ii) extending the scope of the thin capitalization rules to debts of partnerships of which a Canadian-resident corporation is a member,
(iii) treating disallowed interest expense under the thin capitalization rules as dividends for the purposes of withholding tax imposed under Part XIII of the Income Tax Act, and
(iv) preventing double taxation in certain circumstances when a Canadian resident corporation borrows money from its controlled foreign affiliate;
(m) imposes, in certain circumstances, withholding tax under Part XIII of the Income Tax Act when a foreign-based multinational corporation transfers a foreign affiliate to its Canadian subsidiary, while preserving the ability of the Canadian subsidiary to undertake expansion of its Canadian business; and
(n) phases out the Overseas Employment Tax Credit.
Part 1 also implements other selected income tax measures. Most notably, it introduces tax rules to accommodate Pooled Registered Pension Plans and provides that income received from a retirement compensation arrangement is eligible for pension income splitting in certain circumstances.
Part 2 amends the Excise Tax Act and the Jobs and Economic Growth Act to implement rules applicable to the financial services sector in respect of the goods and services tax and harmonized sales tax (GST/HST). They include rules that allow certain financial institutions to obtain pre-approval from the Minister of National Revenue of methods used to determine their liability in respect of the provincial component of the HST, that require certain financial institutions to have fiscal years that are calendar years, that require group registration of financial institutions in certain cases and that provide for changes to a rebate of the provincial component of the HST to certain financial institutions that render services to clients that are outside the HST provinces. This Part also confirms the authority under which certain GST/HST regulations relating to financial institutions are made.
Part 3 amends the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act to provide the legislative authority to share with provinces and territories taxes in respect of specified investment flow-through (SIFT) entities — trusts or partnerships — under section 122.1 and Part IX.1 of the Income Tax Act, consistent with the federal government’s proposal on the introduction of those taxes. It also provides the legislative authority to share with provinces and territories the tax on excess EPSP amounts imposed under Part XI.4 of the Income Tax Act, consistent with the measures proposed in the March 29, 2012 budget. It also allows the Minister of Finance to request from the Minister of National Revenue information that is necessary for the administration of the sharing of taxes with the provinces and territories.
Part 4 enacts and amends several Acts in order to implement various measures.
Division 1 of Part 4 amends the Trust and Loan Companies Act, the Bank Act, the Insurance Companies Act and the Jobs and Economic Growth Act as a result of amendments introduced in the Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act to allow certain public sector investment pools to directly invest in a federally regulated financial institution.
Division 2 of Part 4 amends the Canada Shipping Act, 2001 to permit the incorporation by reference into regulations of all Canadian modifications to an international convention or industry standard that are also incorporated by reference into the regulations, by means of a mechanism similar to that used by many other maritime nations. It also provides for third parties acting on the Minister of Transport’s behalf to set fees for certain services that they provide in accordance with an agreement with that Minister.
Division 3 of Part 4 amends the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation Act to, among other things, provide for a limited, automatic stay in respect of certain eligible financial contracts when a bridge institution is established. It also amends the Payment Clearing and Settlement Act to facilitate central clearing of standardized over-the-counter derivatives.
Division 4 of Part 4 amends the Fisheries Act to amend the prohibition against obstructing the passage of fish and to provide that certain amounts are to be paid into the Environmental Damages Fund. It also amends the Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act to amend the definition of Aboriginal fishery and another prohibition relating to the passage of fish. Finally, it provides transitional provisions relating to authorizations issued under the Fisheries Act before certain amendments to that Act come into force.
Division 5 of Part 4 enacts the Bridge To Strengthen Trade Act, which excludes the application of certain Acts to the construction of a bridge that spans the Detroit River and other works and to their initial operator. That Act also establishes ancillary measures. It also amends the International Bridges and Tunnels Act.
Division 6 of Part 4 amends Schedule I to the Bretton Woods and Related Agreements Act to reflect changes made to the Articles of Agreement of the International Monetary Fund as a result of the 2010 Quota and Governance Reforms. The amendments pertain to the rules and regulations of the Fund’s Executive Board and complete the updating of that Act to reflect those reforms.
Division 7 of Part 4 amends the Canada Pension Plan to implement the results of the 2010-12 triennial review, most notably, to clarify that contributions for certain benefits must be made during the contributory period, to clarify how certain deductions are to be determined for the purpose of calculating average monthly pensionable earnings, to determine the minimum qualifying period for certain late applicants for a disability pension and to enhance the authority of the Review Tribunal and the Pension Appeals Board. It also amends the Department of Human Resources and Skills Development Act to enhance the authority of the Social Security Tribunal.
Division 8 of Part 4 amends the Indian Act to modify the voting and approval procedures in relation to proposed land designations.
Division 9 of Part 4 amends the Judges Act to implement the Government of Canada’s response to the report of the fourth Judicial Compensation and Benefits Commission regarding salary and benefits for federally appointed judges. It also amends that Act to shorten the period in which the Government of Canada must respond to a report of the Commission.
Division 10 of Part 4 amends the Canada Labour Code to
(a) simplify the calculation of holiday pay;
(b) set out the timelines for making certain complaints under Part III of that Act and the circumstances in which an inspector may suspend or reject such complaints;
(c) set limits on the period that may be covered by payment orders; and
(d) provide for a review mechanism for payment orders and notices of unfounded complaint.
Division 11 of Part 4 amends the Merchant Seamen Compensation Act to transfer the powers and duties of the Merchant Seamen Compensation Board to the Minister of Labour and to repeal provisions that are related to the Board. It also makes consequential amendments to other Acts.
Division 12 of Part 4 amends the Customs Act to strengthen and streamline procedures related to arrivals in Canada, to clarify the obligations of owners or operators of international transport installations to maintain port of entry facilities and to allow the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness to require prescribed information about any person who is or is expected to be on board a conveyance.
Division 13 of Part 4 amends the Hazardous Materials Information Review Act to transfer the powers and functions of the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission to the Minister of Health and to repeal provisions of that Act that are related to the Commission. It also makes consequential amendments to other Acts.
Division 14 of Part 4 amends the Agreement on Internal Trade Implementation Act to reflect changes made to Chapter 17 of the Agreement on Internal Trade. It provides primarily for the enforceability of orders to pay tariff costs and monetary penalties made under Chapter 17. It also repeals subsection 28(3) of the Crown Liability and Proceedings Act.
Division 15 of Part 4 amends the Employment Insurance Act to provide a temporary measure to refund a portion of employer premiums for small businesses. An employer whose premiums were $10,000 or less in 2011 will be refunded the increase in 2012 premiums over those paid in 2011, to a maximum of $1,000.
Division 16 of Part 4 amends the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to provide for an electronic travel authorization and to provide that the User Fees Act does not apply to a fee for the provision of services in relation to an application for an electronic travel authorization.
Division 17 of Part 4 amends the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation Act to remove the age limit for persons from outside the federal public administration being appointed or continuing as President or as a director of the Corporation.
Division 18 of Part 4 amends the Navigable Waters Protection Act to limit that Act’s application to works in certain navigable waters that are set out in its schedule. It also amends that Act so that it can be deemed to apply to certain works in other navigable waters, with the approval of the Minister of Transport. In particular, it amends that Act to provide for an assessment process for certain works and to provide that works that are assessed as likely to substantially interfere with navigation require the Minister’s approval. It also amends that Act to provide for administrative monetary penalties and additional offences. Finally, it makes consequential and related amendments to other Acts.
Division 19 of Part 4 amends the Canada Grain Act to
(a) combine terminal elevators and transfer elevators into a single class of elevators called terminal elevators;
(b) replace the requirement that the operator of a licensed terminal elevator receiving grain cause that grain to be officially weighed and officially inspected by a requirement that the operator either weigh and inspect that grain or cause that grain to be weighed and inspected by a third party;
(c) provide for recourse if an operator does not weigh or inspect the grain, or cause it to be weighed or inspected;
(d) repeal the grain appeal tribunals;
(e) repeal the requirement for weigh-overs; and
(f) provide the Canadian Grain Commission with the power to make regulations or orders with respect to weighing and inspecting grain and the security that is to be obtained and maintained by licensees.
It also amends An Act to amend the Canada Grain Act and the Agriculture and Agri-Food Administrative Monetary Penalties Act and to Repeal the Grain Futures Act as well as other Acts, and includes transitional provisions.
Division 20 of Part 4 amends the International Interests in Mobile Equipment (aircraft equipment) Act and other Acts to modify the manner in which certain international obligations are implemented.
Division 21 of Part 4 makes technical amendments to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, 2012 and amends one of its transitional provisions to make that Act applicable to designated projects, as defined in that Act, for which an environmental assessment would have been required under the former Act.
Division 22 of Part 4 provides for the temporary suspension of the Canada Employment Insurance Financing Board Act and the dissolution of the Canada Employment Insurance Financing Board. Consequently, it enacts an interim Employment Insurance premium rate-setting regime under the Employment Insurance Act and makes amendments to the Canada Employment Insurance Financing Board Act, the Department of Human Resources and Skills Development Act, the Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act and Schedule III to the Financial Administration Act.
Division 23 of Part 4 amends the Canadian Forces Superannuation Act, the Public Service Superannuation Act and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Superannuation Act and makes consequential amendments to other Acts.
The Canadian Forces Superannuation Act is amended to change the limitations that apply in respect of the contribution rates at which contributors are required to pay as a result of amendments to the Public Service Superannuation Act.
The Public Service Superannuation Act is amended to provide that contributors pay no more than 50% of the current service cost of the pension plan. In addition, the pensionable age is raised from 60 to 65 in relation to persons who become contributors on or after January 1, 2013.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police Superannuation Act is amended to change the limitations that apply in respect of the contribution rates at which contributors are required to pay as a result of amendments to the Public Service Superannuation Act.
Division 24 of Part 4 amends the Canada Revenue Agency Act to make section 112 of the Public Service Labour Relations Act applicable to the Canada Revenue Agency. That section makes entering into a collective agreement subject to the Governor in Council’s approval. The Division also amends the Canada Revenue Agency Act to require that the Agency have its negotiating mandate approved by the President of the Treasury Board and to require that it consult the President of the Treasury Board before determining certain other terms and conditions of employment for its employees.

The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-45, A second Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 29, 2012 and other measures, as reported (without amendment) from the committee.

Report Stage Motions—Speaker's Ruling

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

Before delivering a ruling regarding the report stage of Bill C-45, a second act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 29, 2012 and other measures, the Chair would like to take a moment to respond briefly to certain arguments raised yesterday by the hon. House leaders of the government and the official opposition. A more comprehensive ruling, dealing with their points in detail, will be delivered at a later date. Today I will limit my comments to only a few key points.

Yesterday, the hon. opposition House leader raised a point of order about the manner in which votes were applied in June of this year at the report stage of Bill C-38, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 29, 2012 and other measures. He expressed concern that, as a result of the grouping of votes at report stage, members may, in essence, have had to cast a single vote that would apply to several motions, some of which they supported and some of which they opposed.

Let me say at the outset that analyzing report stage motions for purposes of selection, grouping for debate and voting is never an easy task and represents a significant challenge for the Chair, particularly in cases such as the present one where a very large number of motions have been placed on notice. As I stated in my ruling of June 11, 2012 in relation to Bill C-38:

In my selection of motions, in their grouping and in the organization of the votes, I have made every effort to respect both the wishes of the House and my responsibility to organize the consideration of report stage motions in a fair and balanced manner.

The Chair is being asked to consider the suggestion that every motion to delete a clause should be voted on separately. This would diverge from our practice where, for voting purposes where appropriate, a long series of motions to delete are grouped for a vote. Since the effect of deleting a clause at report stage is, for all practical purposes, the same as negativing a clause in committee, to change our practice to a one deletion, one vote approach could be seen as a repetition of the clause-by-clause consideration of the bill in committee, something which the House is specifically enjoined against in the notes to Standing Orders 76(5) and 76.1(5), which state that the report stage is not meant to be a reconsideration of the committee stage.

That said, though, it has been a long-standing practice for the Chair to select motions to delete clauses at report stage. I reminded the House of our practices in that regard in my ruling in relation to Bill C-38 when I stated, “motions to delete clauses have always been found to be in order and it must also be noted have been selected at report stage”.

To provide just two examples, I would refer members to a ruling by Speaker Milliken regarding the report stage of Bill C-50 on May 30, 2008, which can be found at page 6341 of the Debates of the House of Commons, as well as my own ruling regarding the report stage of Bill C-9, which can be found at page 2971 of the Debates for May 26, 2010.

In the absence of any specific guidance from the House with regard to motions to delete and other matters raised in the points of order, the Speaker cannot unilaterally modify the well-established current practice. Accordingly, with regard to the report stage of Bill C-45, the Chair will be guided by my past rulings and, in particular, by the ruling on Bill C-38.

Committees of the House—Speaker's Ruling

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

I am now prepared to rule on the points of order raised on November 26, 2012, by the hon. House leader for the official opposition and the member for Kings—Hants, both of which arose from proceedings in the Standing Committee on Finance during its consideration of Bill C-45, a second act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 29, 2012 and other measures.

I would like to thank the hon. House leader of the official opposition and the hon. member for Kings—Hants for having raised their concerns, as well as the hon. Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons for their interventions.

In raising his point of order, the opposition House leader asserted that the Standing Committee on Finance, through the adoption of a timetabling motion on October 31, 2012, regarding how it would conduct its proceedings on Bill C-45, went beyond its mandate and usurped the authority of the House when it invited other standing committees to study particular sections of Bill C-45 and to forward any proposed amendments back to the finance committee. He drew particular attention to that part of the finance committee's timetabling motion that provided for amendments to the bill recommended by other committees to be deemed proposed to the finance committee and must be considered in its proceedings along with amendments proposed by members of the committee. He argued that, as the House had referred the bill specifically and solely to the finance committee and had not adopted a motion of instruction authorizing other committees to study specific parts of the bill and subsequently report back to the House in the usual manner, the 13th report of the committee on Bill C-45 should be ruled out of order.

In replying to these arguments, the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons insisted that the Standing Committee on Finance had at no time relinquished any of its authority over the committee proceedings on Bill C-45, as it had simply invited other committees to offer suggested changes to the legislation. Further, he stated that there was an established practice whereby a committee charged with studying a bill has consulted other committees by inviting them to study a particular subject matter in the bill and then provide feedback.

The point of order raised by the member for Kings—Hants centred on the manner in which the committee dealt with the amendments to the bill which he, as a member of the committee, had submitted. He pointed out that the motion adopted by the committee on October 31, 2012, specified that once a specific time was reached, “the Chair shall put forthwith and successively, without further debate or amendment, each and every question necessary to dispose of clause-by-clause consideration of the bill”, and explained that, accordingly, the chair of the committee ruled that the committee would not be voting on any amendments on notice which had not been moved prior to the deadline.

Because the committee overturned that decision by the Chair, the member for Kings—Hants argued that the committee forced votes to be held on all amendments submitted, even those which had yet to be moved. He alleged that the removal of his discretion to decide which amendments he wanted to move, coupled with the overturning of the Chair’s procedurally sound ruling, constituted an abuse of the committee process.

The government House leader began his remarks by pointing out that, as committees are masters of their own proceedings, such matters ought to be settled in committee. He then argued that a broader interpretation of the timetabling motion adopted by the finance committee was needed in order to have a consistent interpretation in committee and in the House of such practices. He asserted that, in overturning the chair's decision, the committee broke no rules, nor did the putting of the question on all amendments submitted result in the member's rights being denied.

The Chair is therefore being asked to address two questions. First, did the Standing Committee on Finance overstep its authority when it adopted a timetabling motion, which, among other provisions, asked other standing committees to consider the subject matter of various parts of Bill C-45 and to offer suggestions as to possible amendments?

Second, do the actions of the committee in overturning the Chair so as to have all amendments on notice, including all the amendments of the hon. member for Kings—Hants, deemed moved during clause-by-clause consideration constitute a denial of his rights as a member?

The government House leader and the parliamentary secretary have both argued that the approach taken by the Standing Committee on Finance, namely, to seek the assistance of other standing committees in the consideration of the subject matter of a bill, is not extraordinary. In support of that contention, the parliamentary secretary referred to a motion of the Standing Committee on Finance on April 28, 2008, when it proceeded in a similar fashion by requesting that the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration consider the subject matter of a part of Bill C-50, an act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 26, 2008 and to enact provisions to preserve the fiscal plan set out in that budget.

While it may be overstating matters that this is “established practice”, it is true that committee practice is of considerable flexibility and fluidity. This is acknowledged by the opposition House leader himself who spoke of the need for committees to respect clear and distinct limits but declared to that, “when work is assigned to it by the House, it is largely up to the committee to decide how and when to tackle it”.

It should be noted that in the present case, even though other committees were invited to suggest amendments, it is the finance committee itself that chose to do so. It also decided how to deal with any suggested amendments and it retained the ability to decide whether or not to adopt any such amendments.

This is not the first time proceedings in a committee have given rise to procedural questions in the House and concerns about precedents being created. The Chair is reminded of a ruling given by Speaker Fraser on March 26, 1990, which can be found at page 9757 of the Debates of the House of Commons, in relation to a particularly controversial committee proceeding. He said:

I would caution members, however, in referring to this as a precedent. What occurred was merely a series of events and decisions made by the majority in a committee. Neither this House nor the Speaker gave the incidents any value whatsoever in procedural terms. One must exercise caution in attaching guiding procedural flags to such incidents and happenings.

The case at hand is not necessarily analogous to the one before us now but, nevertheless, this quote from Speaker Fraser serves as a useful reminder that committee practice is in continuous flux and that it is important to place particular occurrences in context.

As all members are aware, it is a long-established practice that committees are expected to report matters to the House before they can be considered by the Speaker. Speaker Milliken, in a ruling made on November 27, 2002, which can be found at pages 1949 and 1950 of the Debates, put it this way:

As Speaker, I appreciate the responsibility that I have to defend the rights of all members and especially those of members who represent minority views in the House. At the same time, it is a long tradition in this place that committees are masters of their own proceedings. Ordinarily the House is only seized of a committee matter when the committee reports to the House outlining the situation that must be addressed.

In the same ruling, he added:

—it is true as well that committees are permitted a greater latitude in the conduct of their proceedings than might be allowed in the House. It may not always be clear in a particular set of circumstances how best to proceed and so the ultimate decision is left to the committee itself.

Even the rulings of the chair of a committee may be made the subject of an appeal to the whole committee. The committee may, if it thinks appropriate, overturn such a ruling.

Today, I am being asked to decide, in the absence of a report from the committee whether, in this particular instance, the committee exceeded the limits of its powers to such an extent as to warrant an intervention from the Chair. As I see this case, the House referred the bill to the committee for study. The committee proceeded to study the bill, as has been described, and then the committee reported the bill back to the House without amendment. The report of the committee returning to us the bill is all this House has before it.

In other words, I cannot see how the Chair can reach into committee proceedings to somehow provide redress without a report to the House from the finance committee detailing particular grievances or describing a particular set of events. Accordingly, I cannot find sufficient evidence that the standing committee exceeded the limits of its mandate and powers in the manner in which it considered Bill C-45.

The Chair is fully aware that some members are frustrated with the way in which the proceedings took place in committee, particularly given that, as events unfolded there, they believe they were left without recourse. However much I might appreciate these frustrations, the fact remains that none of the actions of the Standing Committee on Finance have been reported to the House for its consideration. Therefore, in keeping with the long established practices of the House in that regard, the Chair is not in a position to delve into the matter further.

In conclusion, the Chair finds that the 13th report of the Standing Committee on Finance on Bill C-45 is properly before the House and, accordingly, that the bill can proceed to the next steps in the legislative process.

I thank members for their attention.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Exactly.

I think I'm going to leave that issue.

Minister, since you're here, I really would like to talk about some of the changes we've made in the Canadian Grain Commission and the grain trade. We had a group of farmers in here last week, and I'm just amazed at how happy they're looking right now, with $8.50 wheat and the movement of grain right now.

Could you talk about the CGC and the changes that are going on in Bill C-45, and maybe about changes in CWB and how the transition is impacting the market?

Report Stage Motions

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Yes, Mr. Speaker, there are a couple of important points that will bear upon your ruling. I hope you did not take that too personally from the government House leader. It was a little bit of a procedural smack-down of your previous ruling on Bill C-38. I know that it was not meant personally, but boy, he did not appreciate your ruling before.

In terms of the disrepute of the House and using procedural games to do it, this comes from a government that prorogued Parliament to avoid a confidence vote and then lectures the House on how it holds Parliament in high regard.

The selection for debate my hon. friend spent so much of his time on was not our point at all. The point we were making was that, of course, you have the selection as to which motions come. Our entire premise, if he had been listening, was on the idea of what gets grouped together. I raised a very specific point with the member, with you and with the House to say that in the groupings last spring, many votes were put together that caused the members of Parliament to vote singly on multiple issues on which they may have had multiple opinions.

The example I used in my speech, which I know my hon. colleague would understand and agree with, was that a single vote cast on changing the language in the French text in the bill was also connected and became the same vote as the definition of a navigable water. Any member of Parliament from the government or the opposition who may have agreed with the first part of the vote and disagreed with the second was allowed to vote only once.

The point of the groupings is to allow members to vote freely and fairly. I know the government House leader has been very helpful, in his own eyes, in now grouping all the different amendments for you, Mr. Speaker. I know that he is often inconvenienced by the cost and the burdensome nature of democracy. However, I will remind him that receiving only 39% of the vote does not give the government somehow the mandate to run roughshod over our Parliament and our parliamentary procedure.

The evil the member talked about and quoted often, and this is important as you seek to group amendments, with respect to vexatious amendments, were the 471 amendments moved by the Reform Party against the Nisga'a treaty. This is now coming from many members who were in that movement and in that party who did not like the treaty and moved commas and semicolons and periods around to try to delay the work of the House.

There are many things Canadians can contemplate. However, the outright hypocrisy coming from Conservatives and former Reform members in saying that they do not like the rules that they themselves applied so vexatiously in the House of Commons in trying to deny the first modern-day treaty in Canadian history is passing strange.

I will end on this. Democracy is from time to time a complicated and difficult process. It can be a difficult system. That is hard for the Conservative government to contemplate, but it is a much better system than the other options available for governing ourselves.

It seems to me that when we gave examples that the groupings are important to allow members to vote freely and fairly, the government House leader chose to ignore all of those things. It is the Speaker's choice as to which ones are vexatious and inconvenient. I said that in my comments to the House. If they are vexatious, they should not be chosen and selected for votes. What I did say was that in a grouping of these amendments, it is important that members are able to vote freely.

It seems to me that the government helped make our point about the amendments, none of which have been moved. Many are serious and substantive amendments to improve, in this case, a 450-page piece of legislation. In the previous bill of some 425 pages, the government adopted none. Conservatives did not change a comma, a period or a semicolon or a single word of text. Somehow the government was able to create perfectly more than 900 pages of legislation without a single error or omission. It got it all right. We know that not to be true, because for Bill C-38, the first omnibus bill, which was moved in the spring, Conservatives are now having to make corrections in Bill C-45, some months later, before they have even had a chance to enact the legislation. Therefore, were they perfect? No.

Maybe from time to time the government may learn that slow and steady slide from feeling that they are somehow ordained with this perfection crosses into arrogance and is ultimately an allergy to Canadians. They want a government that is humble. They want a government that from time to time listens and does not believe that in all cases every piece of legislation it has written is perfect. It has already shown time and again that it writes bad legislation. Conservatives should use this process to make better their imperfect attempts at reforming Canadian law.

Mr. Speaker, this is a question about grouping, not a question about which motions you choose to select, on which my hon. colleague spent much of his time. If he had listened and understood this point of order, he would also agree that while messy and while cumbersome, as democracy can be, we must abide by this principle, whatever our political orientation, because that is what Canadians expect at the least.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, the decision that you will have to make regarding the upcoming treatment of Bill C-45 at report stage is a particularly important one, because your determination will largely settle whether the opposition can effectively make a farce of the procedures of the House and shut down the legislative process, or whether you will give actual meaning to the intent of the Standing Orders and allow the business of the country to be done in a meaningful and democratic fashion.

I will refresh everyone's memory of what we are talking about. We are talking about the interpretation of Standing Order 76(5), which relates to amendments at report stage to any legislation. In particular, we are now talking about the budget implementation bill. This Standing Order sets out the Speaker's power to select and combine amendments at this stage. It states in part, “The Speaker shall have the power to select or combine amendments or clauses to be proposed at the report stage...”. The opposition House leader is advising you, Mr. Speaker, to amend unilaterally this Standing Order to render it ineffective. That should not be the case.

If there is any doubt as to how this should be interpreted, a note was added by previous governments, not a Conservative government but a Liberal government, that reads as follows:

The Speaker will not normally select for consideration any motion previously ruled out of order in committee.... The Speaker will normally only select motions that were not or could not be presented in committee. A motion, previously defeated in committee, will only be selected if the Speaker judges it to be of such exceptional significance as to warrant a further consideration at the report stage. The Speaker will not normally select for separate debate a repetitive series of motions which are interrelated and, in making the selection, shall consider whether individual Members will be able to express their concerns during the debate on another motion.

The most important recent addition states:

For greater clarity, the Speaker will not select for debate a motion or series of motions of a repetitive, frivolous or vexatious nature or of a nature that would serve merely to prolong unnecessarily proceedings at the report stage and, in exercising this power of selection, the Speaker shall be guided by the practice followed in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom.

We recall that there was some public comment after the ruling earlier this spring and the number of amendments allowed. Here I refer to comment by the actual individuals who were involved in the preparation of that section and the changes that were proposed to the Standing Orders. They expressed some disappointment at the ruling that was made and thought that the powers were there for the Speaker to prevent the abuse that we saw earlier this spring, when the House was tied up for many hours by hundreds of votes, none of which changed a single comma, all of which were clearly and evidently an abuse of the process and a massive cost to Canadians in terms of the operation of the House and an inconvenience to members who had other business to do for the purposes of this country.

I will point out that the Standing Orders and the powers in them have a history to them; they do not exist separately and apart. If we review O'Brien and Bosc, there is some reflection on this history at page 777, which states:

In 1955, the House amended its Standing Orders to reflect this practice.

That referred to a previous practice of concurrence in amendments from committee. As O'Brien and Bosc note:

It was agreed that amendments had to be presented to the House and that the motion for concurrence in the amendments had to be disposed of forthwith before the bill was ordered for debate at third reading at the next sitting of the House. The effect of these amendments to the Standing Orders was to eliminate what then constituted the equivalent of report stage. In 1968, the House undertook a thorough revision of its legislative process with the result that all bills, except for those based on supply or ways and means motions, were thenceforth to be referred to standing or special committees, and would not be reconsidered by a Committee of the Whole House. In addition, the House restored report stage [that was the trade-off] and empowered the Speaker to select and group amendments.

That was the management aspect of it.

Therefore, in restoring report stage, effectively, it was not done carte blanche, so that everything had to be considered. There was a recognition that there were some risks. That is why the Speaker was given powers to allow the House to continue to function, powers to limit an abuse through procedural measures and unnecessary, frivolous, vexatious or duplicative amendments.

O'Brien and Bosc go on to state:

In recommending that report stage be restored, the 1968 Special Committee on Procedure believed that stage essential in order to provide all Members of the House, and not merely members of the committee, with an opportunity to express their views on bills under consideration and to propose amendments, where appropriate. For all that, the intent of the Committee was not for this stage to become a repetition of committee stage.

I put it to you, Mr. Speaker, that with the amendments we have seen on notice so far, nothing could be closer to an effort to replicate exactly what happened at committee, or could have happened at committee. That was clearly not the intent of establishing report stage.

Report stage was to allow for that rare, unique and relatively uncommon circumstance where an idea had not occurred to someone at committee but that here in the House some felt that an amendment was appropriate, novel and different and sought to bring it forward. However, there is nothing novel in the amendments that we see on notice. There is nothing innovative. There is nothing significantly different from what has been proposed or could have been proposed earlier.

Finally, I will go to the most recent change.

Most recently, in 2001, an additional paragraph was added to the above-mentioned note. This occurred in response to the flooding of the notice paper with hundreds of amendments to certain controversial bills. The new text emphasized that the Speaker would not select motions that were “repetitive, frivolous, vexatious or serve only to prolong debate unnecessarily”. Those are overwhelmingly the amendments that we see on the order paper today. The new provision was designed to respond to the evil that was already occurring and undermining the process of the House.

When changes are made, they are generally responding to a problem that exists. Those new powers exist to deal with that. Mr. Speaker, I submit that they should be exercised by you.

When we reflect on what has happened already in the committee proceedings on the budgetary policy of the government, including ways and means Motion No. 7, the first budget implementation bill, Bill C-38, as well as the present legislation, there have already been almost 4,600 votes on the government's budgetary policy.

How much has changed as a result of all of those votes and amendments to what has been proposed by the government? Not one comma, not one word. That is the clearest evidence that the current amendments represent an abuse of process only designed to try to delay and be vexatious and prolong matters.

My submissions are centred on five points.

First, the clause deletion motions are a repetition of committee proceedings and merely seek to prolong report stage proceedings and, therefore, should not be selected.

Second, in the alternative, if the clause deletion motions are selected, they should be grouped in a manner that recognizes the anticipated will of the House.

Third, the other amendments from the New Democrats and Liberals should not be selected because they were presented at committee, or could have been presented at committee.

Fourth, some of the motions by the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands should not be selected on the grounds that they were presented at committee or are similar to amendments dealt with at committee, or that they infringe on the financial prerogative of the Crown.

Fifth, the other report stage amendments from the independent members of Parliament must be grouped in a way that prevents the entire House from being detained in a marathon of votes originated at the whim of, effectively, a single member of Parliament.

Mr. Speaker, as with any bill pending at report stage, you are required to make certain decisions under, among other provisions, Standing Order 76.1(5). Again, this is the one I read earlier about your having the power to select or combine amendments or clauses to be proposed at report stage.

It is in this spirit that I do tender this advice given that the government is scheduling that report stage of Bill C-45 will start tomorrow. Mr. Speaker, I can appreciate that you have a lot to consider today and this evening. I hope you do not have any plans.

Given the duplicated notices from multiple members of each of the two recognized caucuses, for ease of reference, I will refer to those from the members for Winnipeg North, Westmount—Ville-Marie, and Kings—Hants as the Liberal motions, and those from the members for Parkdale—High Park, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, Brossard—La Prairie and Hamilton East—Stoney Creek as the NDP motions.

I would say that the motions to delete clauses are not an effort to amend the bill, but merely repeat what we saw at committee stage. The effect of the adoption of all of the proposed motions to delete clauses would effectively be to eviscerate the bill.

On October 30, the House adopted Bill C-45 at second reading, thereby agreeing to its principle. The House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance reported the bill without amendment to the House on November 26, after consideration of each and every clause.

It may be justifiable in a minority Parliament for the Chair to accept any questions for the House to decide, because it is difficult to predict the intentions of the majority of members. This is not the case in a majority Parliament in general. There is no reason to substantiate an assumption that the House would use report stage to reverse itself in the decision it took at second reading of Bill C-45. In fact, the course of the almost 4,600 votes so far on the budgetary policy of the government established this quite clearly. I do not think anyone is in any suspense as to the outcome of the number of votes that we have. It is only a suspenseful question of how long the endurance test will be of the votes we will put to the House.

I submit that the report stage motions to delete the preponderance of the clauses in the bill effectively seek not only to reverse the outcome of the second reading vote on the bill, but also constitute a repetition of committee stage of the bill. As I said, that is particularly the case since each clause did carry separately in the clause-by-clause votes.

The second paragraph of the note that is in our Standing Orders accompanying Standing Order 76.1(5) with respect to the Speaker's power to select amendments states in part, “It is not meant to be a reconsideration of the committee stage of a bill”. I repeat that: report stage is not to be a repeat of the consideration that occurred at committee.

On February 27, 2001 the House added this paragraph to the note accompanying Standing Order 76.1(5):

For greater clarity, the Speaker will not select for debate a motion or series of motions of a repetitive, frivolous or vexatious nature or of a nature that would serve merely to prolong unnecessarily proceedings....

It then continues on about the British rules.

I read to the House the excerpt from O'Brien and Bosc about the circumstances where there was an abuse with the flooding of amendments. Therefore, we have seen it happen before. We have seen that Parliament has decided that the kind of abuse that occurred in the past should not be allowed to be repeated and, hence, it changed our Standing Orders to reflect that such abuse should not be permitted and that you, Mr. Speaker, have the power to prevent it and to prevent the undue delay.

In the present case we have again seen the notice paper flooded. Today's notice paper lists some 1,662 report stage motions respecting Bill C-45. I am not a betting man, but I am willing to bet anyone in the House that I do not foresee any of them passing.

We know that most of the motions have already been considered at committee. We know that the House has approved overwhelmingly the budget, the budgetary policy of the House and this particular legislation at second reading. By breaking these out into multiple deletion clauses and other frivolous and vexatious amendments, nothing is being achieved but a waste of time, resources and the discrediting of our parliamentary system.

I respectfully submit that the Liberal and NDP report stage motions taken as a whole simply constitute an attempt to reverse the decision of the House at second reading of the bill, but to do so in ultra-slow motion. These amendments would be a reconsideration of committee stage and are of a nature that will merely serve to prolong unnecessarily the proceedings at report stage. Ultimately, if a member seeks to oppose the entirety or the preponderance of a piece of legislation, that member's recourse should lie in voting against the motion on concurrence in the bill in report stage, not in detaining the House through round-the-clock voting.

While your ruling, Mr. Speaker, on June 11, 2012 on Bill C-38 held that clause deletion motions have always been found to be in order, and it must also be noted to have been selected at report stage, I argue that this case can be distinguished. In the present case we are dealing with a second bill to implement provisions of a budget tabled in Parliament. Therefore these clause deletion motions should not find favour under the vigorous exercise contemplated by Speaker Milliken.

I will point out that in the alternative, if selected, certainly these clause deletion motions need to be grouped in an efficient manner. Should you decline to accept my advice, Mr. Speaker, and choose to select those clause deletion motions, I would urge that you use your authority and combine and group them in a fashion that puts them to the House in a sensible and efficient fashion.

I propose that the clause deletions, should they be selected against my advice, be grouped for voting purposes into 10 subsets of economic policy. Under this approach the House would have 10 separate votes on the issue of whether to remove from Bill C-45 the government's proposals in these areas of economic policy:

First, taxation measures, those being any motions to delete clause 1 or clauses in part 1 of the bill.

Second, financial sector measures, those being any motions to delete clauses in divisions 1 and 3 of part 4.

Third, transportation and border measures, those being any motions to delete clauses in divisions 2, 5, 12, 16, 18 and 20 of part 4 of the bill.

Fourth, resource development provisions, those being any motions to delete clauses in divisions 4 and 21 of part 4.

Fifth, aboriginal land designation provisions, those being any motions to delete clauses in division 8 of part 4.

Sixth, labour items, those being any motions to delete clauses in divisions 10 and 11 of part 4.

Seventh, amendments to the Hazardous Materials Information Review Act, those being any motions to delete clauses in division 13 of part 4.

Eighth, measures related to employment insurance, those being any motions to delete clauses in divisions 15 and 22 of part 4.

Ninth, agricultural items, those being any motions to delete clauses in division 19 of part 4.

Tenth, public sector pension reforms, those being any motions to delete clauses in division 23 of part 4.

This would allow for a broad range of votes on a broad range of topics where the opposition, clearly, is seeking to delete the proposals of the government. It would do so in a fashion that would allow that expression to be made. It would allow them to state, for the record, that they disagree with these proposals by the government. At the same time, they would not be establishing an excessive number of votes to get that point across here in the House.

The committee is, in fact, really the best venue for other NDP and Liberal motions. I understand that each of the report stage motions by the New Democrats and Liberals, which propose to make amendments to the clauses of Bill C-45, were put before the finance committee.

As for the 1,000 report stage motions from the Liberals seeking to add bodies of water to schedule 2 of the bill, I would observe that the committee dealt with a similar number of amendments at the committee level.

Since these motions were first published only this morning, I have not yet had an opportunity to determine whether they are exactly the same bodies of water proposed for inclusion at committee. On this point, I will leave my argument that generally, these motions were either dealt with at committee or could have been proposed there, as they are very similar to what was proposed there.

One additional point I would make about any motions to amend schedule 2 of the bill is on NDP amendment 72, which the finance committee considered and defeated, which I believe answers any further reference to adding bodies of water. That amendment sought to add:

All navigable waters situated in Canada and included in the Atlantic Ocean drainage basin, the Hudson Bay drainage basin, the Arctic Ocean drainage basin, the Pacific Ocean drainage basin or the Gulf of Mexico drainage basin.

In short, any water body not already listed in the schedule would have been addressed by that amendment.

Turning to the Green Party leader, I would suggest that some of her amendments should not be selected. Several of the motions by the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands are the same, either in whole or in part, as those presented at committee.

Therefore, I submit that the following report stage motions proposed by the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands should not be selected: Motion No. 28, which is the same as Liberal amendment 23; Motion No. 29, which is the same as Liberal amendment 24; Motion No. 74, which is the same as Liberal amendment 64; Motions Nos. 411 to 413 and 424 to 432, which are collectively the same as Liberal amendment 243; Motion No. 434, which is the same as Liberal amendment 249; Motion No. 436, which is the same as Liberal amendment 250; Motions Nos. 439 to 442 and 445, collectively, which are the same, in part, as Liberal amendment 252; and finally, Motion No. 463, which is the same as Liberal amendment 263.

Others are similar in nature to amendments considered at committee. I would argue that the issue was generally considered by the committee. Therefore, report stage motions should not be selected. This would apply to Motion No. 389, which covered ground similar to NDP amendment 21; Motion No. 409, which covered ground similar to Liberal amendment 240 and NDP amendment 223; Motion No. 440, which covered ground similar to Liberal amendment 253; Motion No. 441, which covered ground similar to Liberal amendment 252 and NDP amendment 31; and Motion No. 458, which covered ground similar to Liberal amendment 257 and NDP amendment 32.

There is also an additional concern raised by some amendments that require a royal recommendation. I have been advised that officials in the Privy Council Office note that at least two of the motions by the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands would require a royal recommendation.

Motion No. 381 would increase the government's liabilities in respect of refunds for employment insurance premiums to small business for 2012-13, which expands the provisions in the bill for such refunds for 2011. By adding two additional years, this motion alters the terms and conditions of the original royal recommendation attached to Bill C-45 respecting the provision for such refunds for 2011.

Motion No. 382 also increases spending in a manner that is not currently authorized. The royal recommendation attached to Bill C-45 respecting this provision provides a limit of $1,000 on the refund of premiums, which this motion is proposing to increase to $2,000.

As a result, this would go beyond the terms and conditions of the original royal recommendation. Therefore, a new royal recommendation would be required.

Officials are reviewing the newest amendments published in this morning's notice. If I obtain further information on items that I believe will require a royal recommendation, I will be sure to send those submissions or provide them to you, Mr. Speaker, through this House.

The independent member's motions are an interesting question. They require some attention, because the independent member does not sit on committee. However, they should not be dealt with in such a manner that they represent, effectively, a harassment of the balance of the House. Compared to the several hundred amendments proposed by the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands in June, on Bill C-38, her proposals as of today's date are slightly less unreasonable. However, the fact remains that the rights of individual members of Parliament must be balanced with the ability of the majority of the House to dispatch its business with some reasonable, practical speed. Allowing a single member of Parliament to hold the House hostage in a voting marathon is simply not reasonable.

I propose the following arrangement, which could, in future, extend to other government bills.

Report stage motions submitted by a member of Parliament who is not part of a recognized party shall be selected in the manner provided for by our rules. The selected motions may be grouped for debate in the usual fashion. Subject to the next point, the voting patterns for the motions would be set in the usual manner, as required by the ordinary practices of considering legislative amendments. However, one amendment per independent member of Parliament would be chosen to be a test vote. The voting pattern for the rest of that independent member's motions would only be implemented if the test motion were adopted. A rejection of the test motion would be inferred as a rejection of all that member's proposals. Therefore, the balance of the independent member's motions would not be put to the House.

In summary, any ordinary person familiar with parliamentary process, in even a passing way, would agree that more than 1,600 amendments are an abuse of process. Most should not be selected. In summary, this member's proposals are collectively a repetition of the committee stage and only seek to prolong report stage proceedings unnecessarily, particularly through the round-the-clock voting that would result.

There is no evidence that the House would willingly agree to be subjected to this. In fact, the history of how our rules have changed and the Speaker's rulings since 1968 confirm this. The Speaker's power to select amendments is clearly designed to prevent that abuse from happening. Mr. Speaker, the note that accompanies Standing Order 76.1(5) is a further clear articulation and reinforcement of the notion that part of one's obligation as Speaker is to protect not just the rights of the minority or an individual member; it is also to protect the rights of all members of Parliament not to see this place brought to discredit through procedures that are entirely frivolous, vexatious, repetitious, designed to delay and certainly designed to inconvenience all members of Parliament to an extraordinary extent.

I submit that the report stage motions, taken as a whole, run counter both to the spirit and the letter of the rules that govern our proceedings. Therefore, I recommend that most of the report stage motions on notice should not be selected and that the balance should be grouped in the manner I have proposed.

Finally, I point out, Mr. Speaker, your ruling in the spring, even though it was not seen as sufficiently aggressive in some fashion and was not seen as efficient as some would have liked in terms of respecting the ability of this House to continue to function. You clearly said, with respect to the 871 motions placed on the notice paper, the following:

[I]t is clearly not intended, nor do our rules and practices lend themselves to the taking of 871 consecutive votes. With respect to the voting table, substantive amendments have been grouped so as to allow for a clear expression of opinion on each of the subject areas contained in the bill. Motions to delete have been dealt with in conformity with the grouping scheme you outlined....

Mr. Speaker, I have certainly given you a proposal that I think falls squarely within the context of what you established in your spring ruling. Here we see that the effort to be frivolous and vexatious has come close to, and has perhaps by now more than doubled, the effort to do so in the spring. The result, I am quite confident, will be the same in terms of the substantive outcome of those amendments. I invite you to ensure that the processes of this House are managed in such a fashion that our proceedings are not brought into discredit and are not made into a farce. Rather, they can operate in a fashion that allows views to be expressed but that also allows the nation's business to be done.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order as to the fundamental nature of the way the House functions and the way that you, Mr. Speaker, allow that smooth processing function to go on. My point of order is specific to Bill C-45, which the House now has before it.

I am rising on a point of order that is indirectly related to Bill C-45 insofar as I am hoping to influence your decision-making on the so-called grouping of report stage motions, which the House will receive tomorrow morning as debate begins at that stage of the bill. I will be asking you to allow for a recorded division on each motion that you select for debate, rather than grouping many of them together and having a single vote applied to more than one distinct question moved by various members of the House. Essentially, I will be making the argument that it is not for the Speaker to limit the ability of MPs to make distinct choices on how to vote on distinct questions.

For Canadians watching at home who are not familiar with our somewhat antiquated and perhaps even arcane practices, it may seem odd that I even have to make this request. I suspect that most Canadians would intuitively think that the Speaker could not have the power, and should not have the power, to require MPs to choose a single vote on multiple distinct questions. I do not think so either and I am going to ask you, Mr. Speaker, to avoid doing so for the report stage of Bill C-45 as well as to set the precedent for how Speakers deal with this matter in the future.

As you well know, Mr. Speaker, you, like your predecessors, are in the habit of grouping motions in amendment at report stage for debate and voting when there is a large number of motions on the notice paper. That has often been the case with omnibus bills, such as C-45 and C-38, which the House studied last spring, by their very nature.

The government decided to put hundreds of clauses in a single bill, and the House and its members are being forced to study them as a single block. That is their choice, not ours, and I am sure it is not your choice either.

I will quote directly from your explanation, Mr. Speaker, of the report stage groupings of Bill C-38, which took place on June 11 of this year. Your explanation to the House was as follows:

—motions to delete clauses have always been found to be in order and it must also be noted have been selected at report stage. These motions are allowed at report stage because members may wish to express views on a clause without seeking to amend it. As is the case on such occasions, I have tried to minimize the amount of time spent in the House on this kind of motion by grouping them as tightly as possible and by applying the vote on one to as many others as possible.

While I am now raising an objection to this practice, Mr. Speaker, I know that you were simply following what has been done by the House and others on such occasions. However, when I looked into the written explanation for this practice, the practice that is written in our guidelines and practices for this place, I was somewhat surprised to find very little in the way of direct guidance for you as Speaker. In fact, what I found was very simply a passage in the Annotated Standing Orders of the House of Commons, on page 272 under Standing Order 76.1(5). To be clear, this is not the Standing Order itself, but rather, the explanation of it. All that is said is the following:

The Speaker determines the order in which the motions will be called and the effect of one vote on the others (for example, if the vote on one motion can be applied to another motion). The purpose of the voting scheme is to avoid the House having to vote twice on the same issue.

That is very clear. Even in this annotation to our Standing Orders, the intention of those groupings is to avoid having the House vote twice on the same issue.

There is also a similar explanation in the House of Commons Procedure and Practice, second edition, which I will, from this point on, refer to as O'Brien and Bosc. On page 784, it states:

—the Speaker...also decides on how they will be grouped for voting, that is, the Speaker determines the order in which the motions in amendment will be called and the effect of one vote on the others. The purpose of the voting scheme is to obviate any requirement for two or more votes on the same issue.

It is pretty clear in its intention and its practice. To avoid voting more than once on the same thing is essential for the House.

Here is the problem. The groupings that you, Mr. Speaker, created for the government's last large omnibus bill were not, in my view, limited to preventing multiple votes on the same issues. Groupings were made to have only one vote applied to completely different clauses in the bill, each of which constituted a separate and distinct issue for the House to address, which is in fact our guideline in our practices, not a suggestion but an actual strict rule and guideline.

It is the government, with the help of its lawyers in the Department of Justice, that has told the House that it deemed each of the clauses to be distinct issues, not us in the opposition. If they were the same issue, they would be in the same clause.

I submit that in the ongoing effort to review and improve the living tree of our procedures and practices, saving MPs from voting on the same issue is not what Speakers have been doing during the report stage groupings. It seems to me that they have been treating motions at report stage as a nuisance and one that should be severely limited, rather than as what they are, as was referenced in the practices before.

I find this somewhat disturbing. If these motions are legitimate questions that the House is meant to deal with at report stage, the final stage, surely MPs should have a choice on how to vote on them. As it stands, MPs are forced to make one single vote on a multitude, sometimes dozens, of individual questions, which are separate in their concepts and ideas.

A clear example of this practice comes again from your report stage ruling on Bill C-38 from June 11 of this year. Motion No. 143 is a motion I know you, Mr. Speaker, remember well. It read that Bill C-38 would be amended by defeating clause 68, good old clause 68. In your ruling, Mr. Speaker, MPs were told that with regard to Motion No. 143, the choice to vote yea or nay on that question would apply to 47 other individual questions, which MPs had moved and you, as Speaker, had selected for debate in the House.

Those questions were: clauses 144 to 146, 149, 151 to 153, 156, 158, 170, 172, 174, 175, 177, 179, 194, 208, 201, 211, 213, 215 and 217, 222 to 224, 226, and 228 to 230, and 232 to 249.

It is impossible for one person, even a person as wise as the Speaker of the House of Commons, to be sure that all MPs share the same opinion on each of these 48 motions. The Speaker may be reasonably sure with respect to the members who moved the motions, and perhaps, by extension, the other members of their party, but in the case of members of other parties or independent members, that assumption cannot be made with the same degree of certainty.

The people watching these debates at home or in the gallery may get the impression that we are entering a dark maze known to some as the Ottawa bubble. In the interest of clarity, I will refer to the example given previously and provide a useful example of the possible repercussions of vote grouping.

In your grouping, Mr. Speaker, Motion No. 143 moved to delete a clause that makes a correction to the simple heading in the French version of an existing law. That is all it did. It seems to me that some members may not want to oppose that change and would therefore tend to vote against the motion. However, that choice applies automatically to Motion No. 144, a completely different idea and concept. It asked to delete clause 69 of Bill C-38. Clause 69 changed the definition of a navigable water and penalty under the act in question, which the same member could easily wish to support.

Just to be clear, we voted once in the groupings that were made by your Chair. One motion on changing the heading in a French version of the bill was also connected to the very definition of a navigable water. It is clear and obvious that a member of Parliament may have two different opinions on those ideas, yet was only being permitted to vote once. That goes against the rules and practices of the House.

As a result of those groupings and nothing else, I am afraid to say, MPs were forced to make a single choice, yea or nay, despite the fact that they would be voting against their conscience no matter which way they voted. It puts members of Parliament who try to represent their constituents into an impossible bind. Whichever way they vote, they end up voting against their conscience. That is not and should not be permissible.

I believe, and I hope you will agree, Mr. Speaker, that the man or woman in your chair should not make a decision that puts any member in a position where they are forced to make such an impossible choice.

In that way, the question of MPs voting against their conscience is one that has been raised before. In fact, the House recently spent a day debating an opposition motion that reminded us all of what the current Prime Minister had to say on a similar matter when he was the one rallying against the anti-democratic agenda of the then Liberal Canadian government, rather than driving the agenda as he does today.

In the Prime Minister's point of order of March 25, 1994, and this quote has become quite familiar in this hall, he said:

—in the interest of democracy...How can members represent their constituents on these various [ideas] when they are forced to vote in a block on such legislation and on such concerns?...We can agree with some of the measures but oppose others.

The Prime Minister was right then. He is in fact wrong now to create these omnibus bills. However, you, as the Speaker, are obligated to maintain the ability of members to vote their conscience.

You will know, Mr. Speaker, that at the time the Prime Minister was objecting to the very existence of omnibus bills, an objection he no longer seems to hold because he has created many and some of which are large.

Speaker Parent then ruled against the point of order, as many others have in similar circumstances, because the objection was being made to the vote at second reading or another vote on the general progress of the bill.

I will quote from Speaker Parent's ruling from April 11, 1994, which was in direct response to the current Prime Minister. He stated:

However, it is the view of the Chair that in the adoption of a second reading motion the House gives approval in principle to a bill...then moves on to the consideration of its specific provisions in subsequent stages.

This is the stage we are at right now.

He continues “Hence, while I cannot accept the hon. member's request to divide or set aside Bill C-17”, which was an omnibus bill by the Liberal government, “I can suggest to him and to other members that should they so wish they may propose amendments to the bill in committee or at report stage and in so doing have an opportunity to express their views and vote on the specific sections of the bill”.

Therefore, in Speaker Parent's ruling, when ruling against the current Prime Minister in his effort to throw out the omnibus bill altogether, because it represented an effort to have MPs vote at cross-purposes to their conscience, he said that there was an opportunity that would come later, at report stage, in which amendments could be moved with respect to those specific sections of the bill and then not be encumbered by it anymore.

This stiff rejection of our current Prime Minister's concern is explained in Beauchesne's Parliamentary Rules & Forms, sixth edition, at page 194, citation 634, which states:

—the practice of using one bill to demand one decision on a number of quite different, although related subjects, while a matter of concern, is an issue on which the Speaker will not intervene....

That is correct. That is the ruling on omnibus bills and the nature of omnibus bills. We are talking about something quite different now and much more nefarious.

Mr. Speaker, at this point in my speech, I would like to emphasize a fact that may seem obvious to you. I am not arguing for or against the validity or even the value of omnibus bills. That is not my point.

You and your predecessors have clearly decided that we would have to deal with such bills, for better or worse. The issue I am raising today is simply the individual right of a member of Parliament to vote according to his or her conscience on issues before the House.

Given the Prime Minister's previous objection to a single vote on a bill that covers a number of issues, I hope that he will support my position on the fact that a single vote on several distinct elements of a bill forces members to vote against their conscience.

Even if the Prime Minister does not agree with my submission, and no longer agrees with himself on this point, there have been many rulings that point out the importance of the rights of members to vote on diverse components of a bill, which are its individual clauses at committee and now report stage.

In his ruling of May 11, 1977, Speaker Jerome stated:

I think that an hon. member of this House ought to have the right to compel the House to vote on each separate question.

He went on in the same ruling of that year to say:

—a member ought to be able, if he wishes to attempt through motions to delete under Standing Order 75(5) to isolate those sections which he feels ought not to be amended or that ought to be voted upon separately, without offending the principle of the bill.

That is exactly what will happen at report stage on this bill.

Finally, in that same ruling:

I think that would give the hon. member and other hon. members an opportunity that they should enjoy, to put their position on the record, which I think ought to be known, and also to require others in the House to vote in respect of that position....where a bill is presented...which contains amendments to several different areas of the law although all connected to criminal law, a member ought to be able to use some procedure at some stage of the bill to cause the House to make separate decisions on those very subject matters.

In his decision of June 8, 1988, Speaker Fraser stated that members have the ancient privilege of voting on each separate proposition before the House. It is indeed an ancient privilege and one that we, all the other members of this institution and myself, must jealously guard.

The problem is that the grouping of report stage motions presumes that one can predict the intentions of members with respect to specific matters that have already been identified as being legitimate and substantive. Perhaps this may seem intuitive, but I would like to say that only in exceptional and extraordinary circumstances should someone be authorized to presume how members will vote on a motion before the House.

Given that omnibus bills have been routinely introduced by this government, these are not exceptional circumstances.

Speaker Milliken, your predecessor, Mr. Speaker, made this point clear when he was addressing the use of Standing Order 56.1 to presume the outcome of a vote in the House, and he said:

The effect of the motion adopted pursuant to Standing Order 56.1 was to predetermine the results of all the votes following the first recorded division. It is clear to the Chair that this application of the standing order goes well beyond the original intent, that is, for the presentation of routine motions as defined in Standing Order 56.1.(1)(b).

The standing order has never been used as a substitute for decisions which the House ought itself to make on substantive matters.

It cannot be replaced. There is no rule in the House that allows us to circumvent the right of any hon. member to have a clear and concise vote on individual subject matters. I will continue with the quote:

In the meantime, based on close examination of past precedents and the most recent use of Standing Order 56.1 as a tool to bypass the decision making functions of the House, I must advise the House that the motion adopted on June 12, 2001, will not be regarded as a precedent. I would urge all hon. members to be vigilant about the use of this mechanism for the Chair certainly intends to be watchful.

The regrouping of report stage amendments for the purpose of voting presumes the very same thing: how MPs will wish to vote on a question before the House. This is a right that the Speaker made very clear should be protected with vigilance.

The introduction to chapter 12 of O'Brien and Bosc sums up very well the current reality of majority governments. On page 527, there is a quote from Parliaments in the Modern World, by parliamentary expert Philip Laundy: “The principle underlying parliamentary procedure is that the minority should have its say and the majority should have its way.”

In my opinion, this means that, in a majority Parliament, the government has the right to get through its legislative agenda, and the opposition has the right to slow passage of legislation in a reasonable manner.

Having a distinct vote on each question put forward by MPs that is clear, distinct and admissible, surely falls under the umbrella of what should be considered reasonable.

In fact, the truth is that the government is directly responsible for any delay that it perceives to be unnecessary in this regard. In this and all pieces of legislation, the government decides how many clauses it wishes to include. This was not a choice by the opposition. This was not a choice by you as Speaker.

The government drafted this massive bill with so many clauses contained. In all this, in all pieces of legislation, the government chose which to include. In Bill C-45 there are now 516 separate clauses, each of which contains a separate legislative change, either to amend or eliminate entirely an existing law or to create a new one. Each is a distinct issue that must be dealt with on a distinct and individual basis.

When MPs move to delete that clause, it is an altogether different question than moving to delete another clause entirely. If it were not, they would be the same clause in the first place.

For the record, I am in full support of the Speaker's right to not select particular motions for the House to deal with at report stage. Motions that are vexatious or clearly dilatory, such as moving to turn a comma into a semicolon, should not be selected because it is a waste of Parliament's time. However, deleting individual clauses of a bill is a right that MPs can, and must be able to, exercise. To speak plainly, they are not a waste of time. Casting a distinct vote on each one is an ancient right of which all MPs should be able to avail themselves and it must be protected by your office, Mr. Speaker.

Deleting a clause of the bill is debatable and therefore a substantive motion. O'Brien and Bosc remind us, on page 782:

Since motions in amendment at report stage are open to debate, they fall into the category of substantive motions...

There is no question there. The effort to delete a clause is a substantive motion. Surely, MPs should be making a decision on these substantive motions individually, rather than as a group.

In conclusion, I wish to present my arguments. Although I may be giving the impression of wanting to ascribe to you the responsibility for this very serious problem, I am keenly aware of the fact that you are following what has been done by previous speakers in such matters. I do not want Canadians who are watching to believe that this is a problem specific to your tenure as Speaker of the House of Commons.

In fact, I know that you believe that the Speaker should not influence the manner in which the House of Commons deals with an omnibus bill such as Bill C-45.

On June 11, in a ruling on a point of order questioning the legitimacy of this type of bill, Mr. Speaker, you cited Speaker Fraser's ruling of June 8, 1988, on page 16257 of Debates, saying:

Until the House adopts specific rules relating to omnibus Bills, the Chair's role is very limited and the Speaker should remain on the sidelines as debate proceeds and the House resolves the issue.

I submit that the practice of forcing MPs to make a single vote on multiple individual questions is not written in the rules of the House, by which you as Speaker are bound. Rather it is a practice followed simply because that is the way it has been done before. However, this clearly is not a justification for the ruling.

In my view, the government's use of omnibus bills, with many hundreds of clauses, sets the table for these groupings. However, given the government, and only the government is responsible, I believe that the Speaker should allow the omnibus nature of their initiative manifest itself in all aspects of the process, including the opposition's right to use the tools of the House to delay, however temporarily, the passage of the bill.

You, Mr. Speaker, have the power to right this wrong and to unburden members of this chamber from making a single choice on multiple questions. I am asking you to exercise that power when you rule on the process for the House to follow at report stage on Bill C-45.

Committees of the House

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to briefly supplement the initial response of the hon. government House leader to the point of order raised yesterday by the hon. House Leader of the Official Opposition on proceedings of the Standing Committee on Finance on Bill C-45.

To be clear about the October 31 motion of the finance committee, which the four New Democrats on the committee voted for, for the record, the chair of that committee was asked in paragraph (a) to write to his counterparts on 10 other standing committees “inviting those Standing Committees to consider the subject-matter” on certain provisions of Bill C-45. They were invited to take up a subject matter study, on which the NDP House leader himself admitted yesterday, “any committee has the right to initiate a study on the subject matter that applies to their policy area, including on the elements of Bill C-45”.

Nonetheless, it remained up to those 10 other committees as to how they would respond to the finance committee's invitation. As I understand it, to a committee, they agreed to consider the relevant subject matter of this budget implementation bill. Indeed, pages 1004 and 1005 of the House of Commons Procedure and Practice, second edition, state:

The standing committees may themselves initiate, without first obtaining the prior approval of the House, any study they feel it advisable to undertake, insofar as it falls within the mandate provided to them by the Standing Orders.

Circumstances of a wide variety inform the choices of committees for studies, whether they be legal or procedural in nature or have a political impetus behind them or, in this case, an invitation letter from a fellow committee. Meanwhile, in paragraph (b), the other committees were “requested to convey recommendations, including any suggested amendments...in a letter...”.

The other committees were not instructed to make a report to the finance committee, as the hon. member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley suggested yesterday. They did, however, each agree to correspond back to the finance committee chair with their views on the subject matter studied. That the other committees have not reported to the House on these studies is not a matter of concern for a point of order in the chamber.

I will continue reading the passage from O'Brien and Bosc at page 1005, which states:

The committees then undertake to define the nature and scope of the study, to determine how much time they will devote to it and whether or not they will report their observations and recommendations to the House.

As the hon. government House leader pointed out yesterday, the finance committee did not cede any of its authority with respect to Bill C-45 and the finance committee retained the authority to vote on all proposed amendments before the bill was ever reported back to the House. There was certainly no undue delegation of authority here.

Finally, he pointed out that this was not a novel practice. It may be of benefit to point out, for example, the case of Bill C-50, the Budget Implementation Act, 2008, in the second session of the 39th Parliament. As part of its study of that bill, the finance committee adopted a motion to ask the citizenship and immigration committee to consider the subject matter of a portion of it. The immigration committee accepted the invitation and later agreed to a letter in reply to the finance committee, even agreeing to append a dissenting opinion to that letter.

In closing, while it may be infrequent for one committee to write to another committee inviting it to undertake a study within its area of competence and to reply with suggestions, it is not out of order.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

If I understood Mr. Leckey correctly, he offered to send us information that might answer the question about the relationship between the amendments in Bill C-45 and Bill S-7. To be more specific, I would be interested in not only your assessment of that relationship, but also a bit of speculation that has been done on this side that it may in fact have an impact on the ability to collect pre-departure information earlier, and therefore provide a capacity for instituting at least some form of exit controls. If you are willing to get that back to us, that would be greatly appreciated.

Standing Committee on Finance

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I want to respond to the point of order raised by the member for Kings—Hants.

As I understand his complaint, he is concerned about the meeting of the Standing Committee on Finance on Wednesday evening, particularly that all of the amendments he tabled for the committee's consideration were voted on. He says that the greatest abuse he has ever seen in the House of Commons was that the House of Commons actually considered his amendments. That is what he considers the greatest abuse that has ever happened here in his lengthy career in the past 15 years. His point of order flows from a motion adopted by the finance committee on October 31 respecting proceedings on Bill C-45 and the implementation of that motion last week at committee.

It is a foundational principle around here that committees are masters of their own proceedings. That is articulated in our procedural literature such as can be found at page 1047 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice second edition, and citation 760(3) of Beauchesne's Parliamentary Rules and Forms sixth edition.

While citation 822 of Beauchesne's says, “Procedural difficulties which arise in committees ought to be settled in the committee and not in the House”, I do want to give a quick recap of events as I understand them since you, Mr. Speaker, have now been asked to make a ruling, even though I do believe the hon. member is in the wrong place when he asks for a ruling to be made.

The committee's meeting Wednesday was convened with a notice of meeting which said that the committee would give the bill “clause-by-clause consideration”.

The October 31 motion, adopted by the committee in a nine to one vote, said that, if clause by clause consideration had not concluded by 11:15 p.m. on November 21, the chair was to put “each and every question necessary to dispose of clause-by-clause consideration” of the bill.

I understand that the chair of finance committee found himself, during the committee's proceedings that day, explaining what would happen to the balance of the 3,072, or so, amendments that were tabled if the clock struck midnight before the committee's work was done. I further understand that he ruled that after midnight no amendments would be voted on by the committee.

Arising from that, I am told that the hon. member for Fort McMurray—Athabasca challenged that viewpoint. These were his arguments, as I understand them.

First, that the committee meeting was convened to deal with “clause-by-clause consideration”, which nonetheless allowed for amendments to be considered. Yet, apparently at midnight, the words “clause-by-clause consideration” excluded the consideration of amendments, which seemed to be a logical inconsistency.

I will add here a quotation from page 761 of O'Brien and Bosc:

Once the witnesses have been heard, the committee proceeds to clause-by-clause consideration of the bill. It is during this phase of the committee's deliberations that members may propose amendments to the bill.

We see similar advice at page 997.

The member for Fort McMurray—Athabasca argued that the words “each and every question” included every one of the amendments that had been duly filed with the committee clerk. This is sensible. These are questions that need to be dealt with for the bill to be dealt with. Then he observed that when the House adopts a time allocation motion, it uses similar phrasing about “every question necessary for the disposal of the stage” being “put forthwith and successively without further debate or amendment”.

Mr. Speaker, when the time allotted ends on those House proceedings, you, as the Speaker, still put every selected report stage motion to the House. Bill C-38 was offered as an example when 15 motions had been moved at the time report stage debate was interrupted and yet the House voted on all of the selected report stage motions, not just the 15 that had already been dealt with at that point. The member for Fort McMurray—Athabasca argued that the same logic should apply to committee proceedings. I certainly agree.

In summary, he argued that the committee's motion of October 31 should not be interpreted in a manner more restrictive than how the same words would be interpreted here in the House.

Committees are indeed different than the House but those differences are generally geared in the other direction, toward allowing greater participation in the committee's business not less, and that is the point that the hon. member for Fort McMurray—Athabasca argued. For example, motions at committee do not require seconders. The previous question cannot be moved. And, unless a committee orders, there are no limits on the length or number of speeches that one can make.

In any event, I gather that the hon. member for Fort McMurray—Athabasca appealed the chair's ruling and by a vote of nine to one, with only the hon. member for Kings—Hants disagreeing, the committee overturned the chair's ruling.

I want to pause briefly here to describe the bizarre turn of events where the Liberal finance critic tabled approximately 3,000 amendments at committee and then sought to create a procedural environment where the vast majority of those amendments might never have been considered at committee. I have heard that the finance committee chair pointed out this perplexing position on Wednesday evening. It is little wonder to me that the Liberals find that Canadians sent them to that corner over there if they pursue cynical political stunts like that. It is indeed Kafkaesque where an injustice is actually having the amendments one has proposed considered. That is the Kafkaesque world of the member for Kings—Hants.

I want to turn to what O'Brien and Bosc has to say about committees' freedom to be masters of their own proceedings. On page 1047 it says:

The concept refers to the freedom committees normally have to organize their work as they see fit and the option they have of defining, on their own, certain rules of procedure that facilitate their proceedings.

That quote actually applies appropriately to the earlier point of order we also argued.

On the next page we see that:

...committees may adopt procedural rules to govern their proceedings, but only to the extent the House does not prescribe anything specific.

I do not believe that the hon. member for Kings--Hants has cited any such order of the House in support of his case. It should also be noted that the member has also failed to present any evidence of procedural impropriety at the committee level.

The finance committee did adopt procedural rules on October 31 when it adopted a comprehensive motion related to proceedings on Bill C-45, including time spent on clause by clause consideration, as well as invitations to 10 other standing committees to study the subject matter of parts of the bill.

Pages 997 and 998 of O'Brien and Bosc speak to this. It says:

The period of time devoted to the consideration of the bill is determined by the committee but it can be circumscribed or restricted by various factors: the obligation to report the bill within a prescribed time, pursuant to a special order of the House or to a time allocation motion, or due to limits the committee has placed upon itself by adopting motions to that effect. In the latter case, it may be a question of limiting the overall time the committee will spend on the clause-by-clause consideration of the bill, the time allocated for debate on each clause and amendment, the time allocated for each intervention by members on the matters broached by the committee, or a combination of any of these.

The motion adopted by the committee accords with the scope of what the committee is entirely able to do.

Then, of course, we have the appeal of the hon. member for Fort McMurray—Athabasca. Page 1049 of O'Brien and Bosc advises that, “Decisions by the Chair are not debatable. They can, however, be appealed to the full committee”. That is worth repeating. Appeals lie with the committee, not with the House. Therefore, I put it to you simply, Mr. Speaker, that the member for Kings--Hants is in the wrong place today asking you to rule on this.

O'Brien and Bosc does go on to add that, ”The overturning of a ruling is not considered a matter of confidence in the Chair”.

In this case, we have a committee, which by a nine to one majority voted for an interpretation of the October 31 motion, which is perfectly intelligible and sensible, and, I would argue, correct, from the words and the intent of that motion.

Not only was it a perfectly intelligible interpretation but it was the one that expanded democratic participation in committee by allowing every proposal to be brought to a vote, by not preventing matters from being voted upon. Therefore, it makes all the more sense to me that the broader interpretation of the October 31 motion would naturally suit the committee environment.

Meanwhile, Mr. Speaker, you are being asked by the Liberals to tell the committees how to conduct their business. The Liberals are actually asking that you tell those committees to have less democracy in how they carry on their business. On the other hand, there is the long and admirable tradition of leaving committees on their own, with Speakers very rarely intervening.

The nature of the complaint here is that the amendments from the member for Kings--Hants were voted on.

Mr. Speaker, what is the evil that you are being asked to address here? The evil is that the member's amendments got voted on. I can understand that some people might consider that an injustice, a difficult burden to bear, but he is complaining that his amendments got voted on. He says that is the biggest injustice he has seen in a decade and a half in the House of Commons. As I say, perhaps it is something other people can complain of but it is certainly not something that he is in a place to complain of.

He says that his rights have been denied. None of his rights have been denied. His rights have actually been protected by the committee. He has a right to propose an amendment and have it considered by a committee. The committee took steps to ensure all amendments were considered. Regardless of the fact that others might not have liked it, it was certainly what he had asked the committee in writing to do. He had asked it to consider the amendments. He had put them forward, I presume, in good faith. Though the number of 3,000 makes me wonder about the good faith nature of them, that is what he did. The committee considered the amendments the member asked it to is hardly an evil that the Speaker needs to address.

Reflecting upon these facts and our procedural guidelines and long-standing tradition with respect to the treatment of committee proceedings, I believe this case is clear cut and, in fact, actually kind of funny. The proceedings at the Standing Committee on Finance last week were perfectly in order and its report on Bill C-45 following its meeting was also perfectly in order.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

If it does, then the narrow parameters you've set here may be affected by Bill C-45. It may provide greater opportunities for exit control than what's in this bill.

I'll turn the rest over to Mr. Scott.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Thank you for being here today.

You've been precise in saying that this legislation does not change anything that might relate to the exit procedures. We also have before the House Bill C-45, which amends subsection 107.1(1) of the Customs Act. Mr. Champagne was here from the Canada Border Services Agency, and he pointed out that this amendment will allow CBSA to get information before the departure of conveyances coming to Canada. I guess my question, maybe unfairly to you today, since you're not Mr. Champagne and it's not C-45, is whether the reverse applies. Does that amendment in Bill C-45 allow CBSA to get early information about people departing from Canada?

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a separate point of order regarding the 13th report of the Standing Committee on Finance. I will endeavour to be succinct in my remarks.

I do think it is important to make you, Mr. Speaker, and other members of the House aware of serious and grave irregularities that took place during the finance committee's study of Bill C-45.

On October 31, 2012, the committee adopted a motion to limit debate at committee during its clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-45, what was effectively a time allocation motion. I would like to draw the Speaker's attention to paragraphs (d), (e) and (f) of that motion, which read:

(d) the Committee shall proceed to clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-45 no later than Wednesday, November 21, 2012, provided that the Chair may limit debate on each clause to a maximum of five minutes per party per clause before the clause is brought to a vote;

(e) amendments to Bill C-45, other than the amendments deemed to be proposed pursuant to paragraph (c), be submitted to the Clerk of the Committee 48 hours prior to clause-by-clause consideration and distributed to members in both official languages; and

(f) if the Committee has not completed the clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-45 by 11:59 p.m. on Wednesday, November 21, 2012, the Chair shall put, forthwith and successively, without further debate or amendment, each and every question necessary to dispose of clause-by-clause consideration of the Bill, to report the Bill to the House, and to order the Chair to report the Bill to the House on or before Thursday, November 22, 2012.

Of particular importance is the phrase “without further debate or amendment”. The chair of the committee, the member for Edmonton—Leduc, correctly interpreted that motion as follows. He said, as indicated in the blues, that “First of all, with respect to the timing in section D of the motion adopted by the committee, it states that 'the Chair may limit debate on each clause to a maximum of five minutes per party, per clause, before the clause is brought to a vote'. So it's five minutes per clause, this is prior to 11:59pm, not for amendments”.

The member for Edmonton—Leduc, the chairman of the finance committee, continued by saying, “The second is with respect to the end of debate; section F of the motion adopted by the committee states: 'if the committee has not completed a clause by clause consideration of Bill C-45 by 11:59pm on Wednesday, November 21st 2012, the Chair put, forthwith and successively, without further debate or amendment, each and every question necessary to dispose of clause by clause consideration of the Bill'. So at that point I will deal with all of the clauses that are left if we have not completed our work by 11:59pm.”

The chair further emphasized his point by saying, “To explain this so that everyone understands, if we go past 11:59pm, at that point I will just be putting the votes on the clauses. If we have amendments left to deal with, I will not be putting forward votes on those amendments”.

The member for Edmonton—Leduc correctly interpreted the phrase “without further debate or amendment” as meaning that no amendments could be moved after 11:59 p.m. on Wednesday, November 21, 2012.

However, the member for Fort McMurray—Athabasca disagreed with the chair. He argued that all amendments for which notice had been given should be put to a vote. In effect he argued that “without further...amendment” actually means “with further amendment”.

The chair emphasized his interpretation by stating, “I will say though it is still my view, and it's the view based on advice from our clerks that the section you quote, section F, it says: 'The Chair shall put without further debate or amendment each and every question necessary to dispose of' but it says without further debate or amendment so that is my view...”.

Simply put, the interpretation of the motion by the member for Fort McMurray—Athabasca was inconsistent not only with any proper understanding of parliamentary procedure but also with any proper understanding of the English language. The phrase “without further...amendment” cannot be interpreted as meaning “with further amendment”. Further, by adopting the motion of October 31, 2012, the committee showed a clear intent to prevent amendments from being moved after 11:59 p.m. on Wednesday, November 21, 2012.

The motion adopted by the committee on October 31, 2012 was silent on when amendments proposed pursuant to paragraph (e) would be moved. As such, that would fall to the normal practice of committee.

Under the normal practice of committee, it is a member's choice to move or not move amendments for which proper notice has been given. When a member provides notice for an amendment at committee, it simply preserves the member's right to move that amendment. It does not require the member to move that amendment. Instead, it provides the member with a choice to move or, upon further reflection, not to move that amendment in the end. At committee, it is the member's choice.

If the member for Fort McMurray—Athabasca had wanted to change the committee's rules while following due process, perhaps he ought to have tried to amend the motion that was adopted by the committee on October 31, 2012, or perhaps he ought to have moved a new motion to replace the motion that was adopted by the committee on October 31, 2012. However, the member for Fort McMurray—Athabasca did neither of these things. Instead, he challenged the ruling of the Chair, the member for Edmonton—Leduc, in order to give the motion a meaning that was entirely inconsistent with its stated intent. As members know, a motion to challenge the Chair at committee is not debatable. As George Orwell noted, the ability to change the meaning of language is a very dangerous power, but that is precisely what the majority of the members of the finance committee did when they challenged the Chair and overturned his decision.

I provided notice for 3,090 amendments to Bill C-45, pursuant to the rules of this House, to committee and, in particular, pursuant to paragraph (e) of the motion that was adopted by the committee on October 31, 2012. By redefining “without further...amendment” to mean “with amendment”, all of the amendments that I had given notice for were retroactively deemed to have been moved without my consent. That choice was taken away from me, and was done so in a manner that falls well outside the rules and traditions of committee.

I am extremely troubled by the precedent that was set at the Standing Committee on Finance meeting on November 21, 2012.

I am concerned that the majority of members can now challenge a chair and change the meaning of words without any debate. I am concerned that the tyranny of the majority can be used to give a rule its opposite intent, effectively leaving individual members without the protection of any rules at committee whatsoever.

Under the rules governing the House and its committees, decisions are to be made by the majority of members. However, the rules also protect the right of the minority to take part in and influence the debate.

At the finance committee, the majority of members representing the Conservatives and the New Democratic Party conspired to overturn a fair and legitimate ruling by the Chair, the member for Edmonton—Leduc, in a manner that was entirely inconsistent with a proper understanding of the English language and without any respect for the traditions or rules of the House.

The result was to retroactively deny my rights as a member of the committee, without any proper debate. The result was also to help the government speed through passage at committee. This is entirely consistent with the government's view of how Parliament ought to be handled or mishandled, but what I have difficulty understanding is why the official opposition would act as the handmaiden for the government at committee and effectively support the government and aid and abet the government running roughshod over Parliament at committee.

I will raise a point of order about the acceptability of the motion for concurrence at report stage at the appropriate time but I am thankful for the time today. What happened at committee last week was probably the worst abuse of the committee process that I have seen in 15 years in this place. To see the official opposition being complicit with the Conservatives on this perhaps reflects a misunderstanding of the rules at that time, in which case, the New Democrats should simply say that they did not understand what was going on and that they did not intend to support the government on this. That would be entirely acceptable. In fact, given the confusion at the committee at the time of some of the New Democrats, perhaps that is what happened, but it would better if they simply acknowledged that and then joined with us in opposing the government's continued disrespect for Parliament and committee.

Committees of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, the practice that was followed at finance committee, of inviting other committees to study the subject matter and provide input on the work over which the finance committee properly had jurisdiction, is actually an established practice. This is not the first time it has happened. It certainly happened in the past and that alone demonstrates that it is an accepted practice.

Throughout the process the finance committee retained actual jurisdiction at all times. It was clearly the committee charged by the House of Commons to do so, and it did so. However, that should not preclude the committee from inviting input from others, whether that be other committees, members of the public, Canadians, organizations. In fact, that is something that the finance committee does regularly and, again, has done regularly over the years.

The reality is that in this complex world we live in issues can and do cross boundaries. One could talk about, for example, the contributions that musicians make to the country, but they do so not just in a cultural milieu. They also do it in an economic milieu. They are part of the economy. Does that mean we could not have it studied entirely by the heritage committee?

Obviously, as happened with the budget, we have issues that encompass the entire Canadian economy. The Canadian economy includes natural resources, manufacturing, industry, our health care sector and our cultural sectors. By the very nature of the work of the finance committee, and we can see this if we look at any consultation it does, for example, the prebudget submissions that it is once again launching, we would find that people from every conceivable sector of society are before the committee on issues that could very well be before other committees. Therefore, it is certainly appropriate to deal with issues in different ways.

The genius of our system is that we find different ways to do this. We have flexibility within and the rules provide for such flexibility. Sometimes we will have formal joint committees established between different committees that join together in Parliament to deal with a matter. Sometimes a special legislative committee may be set up that achieves the same kind of result by bringing together expertise, and sometimes a committee will establish a subcommittee of its own to deal with a particular issue.

When a committee does that, it does not surrender its jurisdiction. It is done without direction from the House of Commons to do so, but it is wholly within its jurisdiction to seek to consult and to have the work dealt with in that fashion if the committee finds it more efficient and more effective as a way of gathering opinions and getting the best possible decisions made. Throughout, the committee that makes the decision to delegate and to seek input elsewhere ultimately retains jurisdiction. The delegation is not inappropriate. It is entirely appropriate because at the end of the day the buck stops at the delegating committee and the jurisdiction stays there. Procedurally, there is nothing wrong with a committee doing what was done by the finance committee. As I say, this is something that is often done at all kinds of levels.

The opposition House leader says that when faced with a situation such as this the only way to deal with the matter is to take the jurisdiction away from the finance committee and to not simply consult with other committees, as the finance committee did, but to give every one of those other committees the same kind of decision-making power. If we were to do what he is inviting us to do, we could very much create a procedural chaos that would make it impossible for the House of Commons, this Parliament and any parliament for future generations to meaningfully deal with things. We do not want to have an American-style situation where we could go years and years without even adopting a budget because of that kind of legislative chaos and gridlock.

By the member's interpretation, not doing this could create a situation that would extend to every other bill, where the finance committee would have to study almost every single bill that ever came before the House because our first nations are part of the economy, our natural resources are part of the economy, and all those bills would have to go to the finance committee as well. I simply reject that premise. Certainly I do not think it would be a wise ruling in any way, procedurally by our history and by our rules, or in practice, to require that to be how bills should be dealt with.

Finally, the member seems to be saying that, when we are consulting, there is a problem with the notion of inviting other committees, as the finance committee did, to provide suggestions on amendments and that it was somehow inappropriate because it was not a formal delegation but, rather, an invitation to offer suggestions. In this case that is a moot question, because there was actually no amendment that was brought forward from those committees and dealt with by the finance committee.

If there were a problem in proceeding in that fashion, that problem might exist in theory but it does not exist in practice. It reminds me of the way the NDP approaches things. It has an academic bent. It looks at things that work really well in the real world and says that it may work in practice, but the important question is whether it works in theory. That is the NDP approach and we see that approach at work right here in this situation.

In practice and in the real world there were no amendments that came from those other committees. There is no evil here of which the member is complaining that actually needs to be addressed because what he is concerned about did not actually happen. It may be an interesting theoretical question, and I can understand the importance of pursuing those interesting theoretical questions on the part of the NDP. However, in the particular circumstances of Bill C-45, these theoretical questions never actually appeared in practice because no such amendments came forward from the committees.

The finance committee maintained its jurisdiction entirely and wholly throughout, when dealing with amendments and dealing with the bill. It did so properly and in accordance with the rules of the House of Commons and in accordance with what the House of Commons asked the committee to do. The bill was properly reported earlier here today and it should now be the work of the House of Commons to deal with that report.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I wanted to wait through much of our procedural moment because I have a significant point of order to raise today. It is of some duration and I wanted to allow members who have to go on to other business to do so.

This point of order is in reference to Bill C-45, specifically with the work that was done by the committees, the powers that committee have and the power that the House retains as the place that created our committees.

It is often said that committees are the masters of their own domain. It is an important concept and it makes an important point about a committee's autonomy. Perhaps you will agree with me when I say that this concept gets exaggerated from time to time by committees.

It means that each of our standing committees is in charge of its own affairs. When it is formed by order of the House and when work is assigned to it by the House, it is largely up to the committee to decide how and when to tackle it. However, it is not true, as some suggest, that this means committees can do whatever they want, whenever they want and however they want. There are rules set out in procedural text, Standing Orders and precedents of our legislature and committees cannot simply throw these rules out whenever it pleases them. Each committee may be the master of its domain in many respects but there are clear and distinct limits on those domains that committees must respect, even if it does not suit some members of the majority governing body.

In the case of Bill C-45, the second massive omnibus bill introduced by the government, the government has been stretching the limits of what can and should be tolerated from a majority government in this Parliament. Parliamentary procedural rules are clear that, notwithstanding the opposition's right to delay things that are unacceptable to them, the government must have the right to make progress on its legislative agenda in a reasonable manner.

However, the government has already tested, and we would argue, broken, the democratic limits of our legislature by packing a legislative agenda of an entire parliamentary session into one or two bills and then cynically adding the words “budget implementation” to the front cover.

In the previous incarnation of this tactic on Bill C-38, Mr. Speaker, you heard multiple submissions from opposition members who felt that the government had simply gone well beyond the reasonable limits of what might be honestly included in its budget bill. You disagreed with the interventions of the opposition at that time, but I hope you will conclude, after this submission, that the government has simply played too fast and loose with the rules that must govern the passage of all legislation, whatever its form or title and that such action undermines Parliament's essential ability to do its work on behalf of Canadians; namely, to be able to hold government to account.

Today, I will not discuss the legitimacy or the value of omnibus bills. It is ironic that this government, in its great wisdom, is single-handedly teaching Canadians words and phrases that they would never have come to know without the Conservatives' help.

A few years ago, the government plucked the word “prorogation” from the pages of procedural texts, making it the topic of discussion around the nation's dinner tables and the impetus behind many demonstrations across the country. Thanks to the Conservatives, Canadians have had to learn a new definition of “ministerial accountability” because, unfortunately, under this Prime Minister, ministers seem to have no accountability. And they have turned the word “omnibus” into a bad word. They have systematically avoided Parliament's oversight by using this legislative tool and abusing the power of their government, which barely won a majority.

During the committee process on its most recent monstrosity of a budget omnibus bill, I believe the government has simply gone too far in its casual relationship with the parliamentary rules that govern this place and Canadian democracy, and that the legislation should be thrown out and made to start over again as a result.

I would remind you, Mr. Speaker, along with this House and the Canadians hoping for better from their Parliament, of what has transpired with respect to Bill C-45, the government's second omnibus budget implementation bill for the 2012-13 year.

On October 18 of this year, following the adoption of the way and means Motion No. 13, the Minister of Foreign Affairs moved, on behalf of the Minister of Finance, that Bill C-45 be read a first time and printed. On October 24, the Minister of Public Safety moved that Bill C-45 be read a second time and referred to committee.

After using time allocation to shut down debate again, second reading of Bill C-45 ended with the passage of the following motion on October 30 of this year:

...that Bill C-45, A second Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 29, 2012 and other measures be now read a second time and referred to [the Standing Committee on Finance].

As a matter of record, Hansard on October 30 specifically quotes the Speaker saying, “I declare the motion carried. Accordingly, the bill stands referred to the Standing Committee on Finance”.

The reference of this bill to the committee, as set out in the motion the House adopted, was always to the finance committee and only to the finance committee.

That is an important point. Because the House is master of its own activities, and in order to protect its rights, it must be certain that its orders of reference are complied with. As you know, Mr. Speaker, in accordance with the legislative process adopted by the House, a bill can only be referred to one committee, and this committee must be the one designated by the House itself.

Committees derive their existence and authority from the House of Commons. The House creates committees specifically through Standing Order 104, which further regulates how they are constituted and governed under Standing Order 106. The House also sets out the specific mandate of each of the standing committees under Standing Order 108.

An excellent summary of this regime can be found in House of Commons Procedure and Practice, second edition, which I will refer to as O'Brien and Bosc, on pages 960 and 962, which says the following about standing committees:

They are empowered to study and report to the House on all matters relating to the mandate, management, organization and operation of the departments assigned to them. More specifically, they can review:

the statute law relating to the departments assigned to them;

the program and policy objectives of those departments, and the effectiveness of their implementation thereof;

the immediate, medium and long-term expenditure plans of those departments and the effectiveness of the implementation thereof;

and an analysis of the relative success of those departments in meeting their objectives.

In addition to this general mandate, other matters are routinely referred by the House to its standing committees: bills, estimates, Order-in-Council appointments, documents tabled in the House pursuant to statute, and specific matters which the House wishes to have studied. In each case, the House chooses the most appropriate committee on the basis of its mandate.

I make particular note that all abilities cited in this passage flow from the House, not from another committee. It is the House of Commons that authorizes these powers. I emphasize the fact that the reference on Bill C-45 to committee was only ever to the finance committee. The motion passed in the House only referred to that committee.

In other words, this does not prevent other committees from studying the content of different parts of an omnibus bill. The committees always have that right, but this study must be separate from the study carried out pursuant to the order of reference the House gave the committee responsible for the official study of the bill in question.

The only way for other committees to legitimately study parts of an omnibus bill is to divide it into several pieces of legislation and ask the House to issue an order of reference for the new bill or bills to these committees.

The official opposition has been calling all along for this bill to be divided and studied properly by the different committees. Members will recall that the official opposition moved a series of motions in the House to divide this bill, using the same method that was used to divide the budget bill and create and pass Bill C-46 on MPs' pension plan, even though we got Bill C-46 only after the NDP rejected the Liberals' original ill-advised proposal to circumvent the legislative process, not only for the pensions of MPs, but also for the pensions of public sector workers and RCMP members.

We have done this in that exact circumstance. The House of Commons took Bill C-45 and, by the powers of the House, divided out the section that was related to the pensions of members and senators.

There was a mistake made in the original proposition by the third party, I must say supported somewhat happily by the government, which would have brushed through changes that would have impacted more than 450,000 public employees, RCMP members and their families without a minute of study or debate in the House of Commons or at any committee.

The official opposition was actually paying attention to what the Liberals had proposed, while the Liberals themselves may not have, and were resistant to the idea of throwing 450,000 public servants and RCMP members under the bus for political expediency.

We divided out that section of the bill and made a counter proposal to just deal with the pensions of MPs and senators. The government was fine with that as well because that was what was actually called for by all members of the House, as opposed to what the third party suggested.

Here we arrive at the essential problem with the approach of the Conservatives to Parliament and making law. They think the rules do not apply to them and their majority means they can cook up any scheme they want just to meet the communication goals of the Prime Minister's office.

In the Standing Committee on Finance, in response to intense pressure from the official opposition and Canadians from coast to coast to coast, in order to give the “appearance” of due diligence on Bill C-45 at committee stage, here is what the Conservatives cooked up.

I will read from the minutes and will emphasize the part that is important to the future ruling of the Speaker. On October 31, the Standing Committee on Finance adopted the following. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance moved:

That, in relation to the Order of Reference of Tuesday, October 30, 2012, respecting Bill C-45, A second Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 29, 2012 and other measures,

(a) the Chair of the Standing Committee write, as promptly as possible, to the Chairs of the following Standing Committees inviting those Standing Committees to consider the subject-matter of the following provisions of the said Bill...

A number of the committees are laid out in this relation from the parliamentary secretary: the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development; the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food; the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration; the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development; the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans; The Standing Committee on Health; the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities; the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights; the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security; and the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities.

This also shows how wide a net the government cast in this bill.

Here are the important parts in the instruction coming out of the finance committee.

This is the part that we argue the finance committee never had the power to do because only the House of Commons can do such a thing.

With respect to section (b) it states, “each of the Standing Committees, listed in paragraph (a)”, all of those which I just recounted:

be requested to convey recommendations, including any suggested amendments, in both official languages, in relation to the provisions considered by them, in a letter to the Chair of the Standing Committee on Finance, in both official languages not later than 5 p.m. on Tuesday, November 20, 2012;

(c) any amendments suggested by the other Standing Committees, in the recommendations conveyed pursuant to paragraph (b), shall be deemed to be proposed during the clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-45, provided that the recommendations are received prior to the relevant clauses being considered, and further provided that the members of the Standing Committee...may propose amendments—

Section (d) states:

the Committee shall proceed to clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-45 no later than Wednesday, November 21...provided that the Chair may limit debate on each clause to a maximum of five minutes...

Therefore, this is a further time allocation, now at the committee stage, and a further shutting down of debate. Section (e) states:

amendments to Bill C-45, other than the amendments deemed to be proposed pursuant...be submitted to the Clerk...

As well, there are other instructions in sections (e) and (f).

Some important facts immediately stand out. The committee did not present its report on the bill to the House by Thursday, November 22 at the earliest. In fact, it presented the report this afternoon. Why? Because the committee violated its own procedural rules when the government ended up in a new mess as a result of communication issues.

I also note that this study, carried out by committees other than the finance committee, is the tactic the third party used to try to improve parliamentary oversight of this bill, from what I understand.

The Liberals got what they wanted, but only because the government was all set to say it was co-operating, when in fact, the entire process was nothing more than a procedural play orchestrated by the government and its unwitting allies in the Liberal Party, who forgot the old saying: be careful what you wish for.

On the other end of this procedural spectrum, the legitimate end, the motions that the official opposition proposed to split the bill in a real and legitimate fashion, which were quickly rejected by the government almost out of hand, would have referred the separate policy areas in Bill C-45 to the appropriate committees for an actual study. Then each committee could held hearings, called a variety of witnesses with critical expertise and then having hearing points of view on the bill, could have create reasonable amendments for debate and decision in a clause-by-clause meeting in each of those committee hearings.

Finally, each committee could then have reported its bill back to the House in due course. This would have dramatically improved a flawed bill, corrected the twisting of the rules from the government and reconfirmed our collective commitment to respect taxpayer money and their Parliament. This bill has massive implications not only in what it sets out to do but its implications on this place and the legitimacy that we hold as parliamentarians to hold government to account.

In the sham of a process that the Conservatives then used, various committees were asked by the finance committee, not the House of Commons, to study and propose amendments to a bill for which it had no order of reference at all. Not only was this a procedural disaster, but because of the impossibly short timelines, there was no opportunity for reasoned debate at the other committees regardless. That last point is a matter of some debate I realize, but it further emphasizes that a process set up by the government was a true disregard for our legislative process. Committees were hearing entire sections of the bill with one or two witnesses and no cross-examination ability and moving through clause-by-clause in minutes with no discussion.

We have been left with an illegitimate process that flies in the face of our procedures and practices, the implication of which is summed up best by O'Brien and Bosc's passage on committee reports, at page 985, where it says:

In the past, when a committee has gone beyond its order of reference or addressed issues not included in the order, the Speaker of the House has ruled the report or a specific part of the report to be ruled out of order.

When committees have gone beyond their mandate in the past, the Speaker saw fit to either reject sections of that committee's report or the entire report.

Mr. Speaker, you yourself referred this bill to a specific committee. I think the Standing Committee on Finance simply did not have the authority to refer sections of Bill C-45 to another standing committee. The committee had the right and duty to examine this bill and report it back to the House, with or without amendments.

Let me review quickly, for those following at home this procedural nightmare that the government has created, a government that seems reluctant or unable to follow the rules that have been set out by this place for many decades, how a committee is supposed to deal with a complex bill referred to it by the House after second reading.

Normally, after passage of a bill at second reading, the committee which received the bill would organize its time, call for a variety of witnesses based on the lists provided by the recognized parties in proportion to their representation at the committee, hear the witnesses, formulate amendments, schedule a clause-by-clause meeting, call each clause, hear the amendments to the clause, vote on the amendments and the clauses and then, finally, vote on the bill. Mr. Speaker, you and I both know this process well. That is not what happened here.

The results of these decisions would then be reported back to the House, where the legitimacy was derived for the committee's studies. This has been a time-honoured practice and, regardless of the bill, the intensity of the debate or the divisions, it has been a process practised by governments of all political stripes.

The House, in its wisdom, has even provided a mechanism to allow for a variation on the normal progress of a bill through committee, which is called a motion of instruction. I will call once again upon the sage guidance of O'Brien and Bosc, this time in the chapter on the legislative process, at page 752, where it states:

Once a bill has been referred to committee, the House may instruct the committee by way of a motion authorizing what would otherwise be beyond its power, such as, for example, examining a portion of a bill and reporting it separately, examining certain items in particular, dividing a bill into more than one bill, consolidating two or more bills into a single bill, or expanding or narrowing the scope or application of a bill. A committee that so wishes may also seek an instruction from the House.

This is the power of the House of Commons. The House of Commons can send this motion of instruction to any committee to divide a bill, to bring a bill together, to study it in its most logical and proper way. That power rests solely with the House of Commons. No committee can take upon any of those actions themselves. They are not the masters of that fate.

If the government were interested in following the rules of this place and wanted to have a variety of committees study the bill, then it could have moved to instruct the committee to do so, what it should have otherwise been powerless to do. In this case, that is to have other committees conduct a review of the portions of the bill that dealt with their policy areas, transportation, Indian affairs, the environment and fisheries and oceans, and to allow amendments to those portions and to report them separately. The committee, if it felt incapable to deal with the sections of the bill that had so little to do with finance and the budget, could equally have asked the House for instruction.

However, the power to authorize this variance in the legislative process rests only with the House of Commons and not with the finance committee.

In your final judgment and assessment on this point of order, Mr. Speaker, one has to not only look at the case in front of us on Bill C-45, how the process has gone completely off the rails, but project forward that if we allow committees to start to make these types of decisions without any authority whatsoever derived from the House, masters of their own fate takes on a more perverse nature, a more politically inspired nature and one that governments of all political stripes would abhor.

I am going to begin to wrap up in a minute.

Because no other committee was given an order of reference by the House to examine Bill C-45 and because the House did not pass a motion of instruction to complement the order of reference, I find it unacceptable that a committee other than the Standing Committee on Finance held votes on the amendments to Bill C-45, which is exactly what the Standing Committee on Finance allowed. Votes therefore took place and, as the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Finance's motion clearly indicates, the decision of these other committees had a binding effect on the work of the Standing Committee on Finance. Yet, this is a right that only the House lawfully possesses.

To be clear, any committee has the right to initiate a study on the subject matter that applies to their policy area, including on the elements of Bill C-45, that the government should have included in a separate bill. Though, even then, those committees cannot report back to another committee. Mr. Speaker, you know this well. One committee cannot just choose to report their amendments and clauses back to another, but rather back to the House of Commons from which the committee derives its power and to which it is accountable, not to another committee but to this place.

Committees also have the power to meet jointly with other committees, but there again a report from a joint committee can only come back to the House of Commons not to another committee. This point is addressed by O'Brien and Bosc, on page 983, where it is referring to a joint committee. It says the following:

If a report is adopted during a joint meeting, each committee may present to the House a separate report, even though the two reports will be identical.

I will also refer to the same chapter, on pages 984 and 985, where a committee report to the House is covered. It says the following:

In order to carry out their roles effectively, committees must be able to convey their findings to the House. The Standing Orders provide standing committees with the power to report to the House from to time, which is generally interpreted as being as often as they wish. A standing committee exercises that prerogative when its members agree on the subject and wording of a report and it directs the Chair to report to the House, which the Chair then does.

Like all other powers of standing committees, the power to report is limited to issues that fall within their mandate or that have been specifically assigned to them by the House. Every report must identify the authority under which it is presented. In the past, when a committee has gone beyond its order of reference or addressed issues not included in the order, the Speaker of the House has ruled the report or a specific part of the report to be out of order.

We have rules for committee which show that they receive their authority from the House and which also say the committees report their work back to the House and only to the House.

In conclusion, the other committees of the House should never have accepted the request of the Standing Committee on Finance, which made them a type of subcontractor to what can only be described as the sloppy work of the Minister of Finance and his parliamentary secretary.

I think that other committees could have easily examined certain parts of Bill C-45.

These committees could have heard from witnesses and reported their findings to the House.

However, because the House referred the issue only to the Standing Committee on Finance and the government minimized the importance of our rules of procedure in order to serve its own communications purposes and appear democratic even while introducing an omnibus bill, I think, Mr. Speaker, that as the guardian of the rules that protect the integrity of this venerable institution, you should reject the committee's report and remove it from the order paper.

Mr. Speaker, I look forward to your ruling on this.

On one final note, I realize without a doubt that a ruling in favour of this submission would be a strong indictment of the government. However, after all of the legislative and procedural corners the Conservatives have cut since getting their much-coveted and very slim majority in the last federal election, perhaps this would be a healthy reminder to all concerned that their power is still limited by the rules of our parliamentary democracy. Perhaps they could use this as a wake-up call. They are not the kings that lord over this country, but just servants to its people.