Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I thank all members. I will endeavour to be brief today. Mr. Chair, I thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak.
Last month, on October 21, the House defeated a motion that in our view included a clause, (E)(xx)(B), that is substantially the same as the amendment of Madame Gaudreau, which is now part of the motion before us.
Mr. Chair, the following week, on October 26, this committee negatived, in our view, a substantially similar motion as the amendment of Madame Gaudreau, which is now part of the motion before us.
Another week later, for the third time, it was again negatived by this committee, due in part to an acknowledgement by the NDP member that it is against the rules to allow a redo on the same motion
There were three decisions—one by the full House, two by this committee, but all three the same—that this motion should not go forward.
Upon reflection, the second decision should never have had to take place in the first place, something I will get to in a moment. However, it does help to further our objection to this issue now coming before the committee for a second time, and before parliamentarians an unprecedented third time.
When section (c) of this motion was proposed by Madame Gaudreau, Liberal members challenged the decision of the chair, as is our right and privilege to do. We did so not out of malice to Madame Gaudreau nor any skepticism of your ability, nor any skepticism of your authority, Mr. Chair. Rather, we did so based on our reading and understanding of the procedure, rules and precedents that guide our work, both in our committee and in the House.
At issue is a fundamental aspect of parliamentary procedure, what Speaker Milliken called, on November 7, 2006, “...a key principle...namely, that a decision once made cannot be questioned again, but must stand as the judgment of the House.”
The green book, which we would all do well to pick up and read more often than, I am sure, most of us do, says in chapter 12, and I quote again, “...if a bill or a motion is rejected, it cannot be revived in the same session, although there is no bar to a motion similar in intent to one already negatived but with sufficient variance to constitute a new question.”
It goes on, “This is to prevent the time of the House being used in the discussion of motions of the same nature with the possibility of contradictory decisions being arrived at in the course of the same session.”
In a footnote to this passage, footnote 375, it continues. Referencing Bourinot's fourth edition of Parliamentary Procedure and Practice, I quote, “a motion that has been negatived cannot be proposed later as an amendment to a question”. This seems to me to be precisely what has happened in this instance, in direct contradiction of parliamentary rules, procedure and past precedent.
Let me now repeat a previous quote that I just read. It is that “this is to prevent the time of the House being used in the discussion of motions of the same nature with the possibility of contradictory decisions being arrived at in the course of the same session.” Mr. Chair, we are now faced with exactly the predicament that the rules were set out for us to avoid: the possibility of contradictory decisions being arrived at in the course of the same session.
It isn't necessary for me to go through in great detail how we got to this point, skirting decades and decades of rulings and precedents. Our rules are quite clear: A decision once made cannot be questioned again, but must stand as the judgment of the House.
I understand—actually, rather, I can't say that I or my colleagues on this side fully understand the opposition's obsession over litigating this again, and we continue to disagree with the attempt to do indirectly what they failed to do directly—that is, by inserting as an amendment something from a twice-defeated motion into what was previously, in our view, a reasonable motion. It is unfortunate that with all the issues facing our country and the world—not just the pandemic, but many other issues of rights and privacy, among others—members opposite would rather pursue this fishing expedition.
While they have accused this side of obstruction, our goal all along has been to stand up for the rules and privileges of Parliament and parliamentarians. Mr. Chair, before you assumed the chair, I spoke at length about this in our meetings over the summer. Unfortunately for the opposition, it appears that partisanship, pettiness, personal agendas and the Conservatives' decade-long obsession with the Trudeau family now take precedence over rules and procedure.
If this motion ends up passing, as the opposition holds majority at the committee, its validity will be immediately questioned and there will be serious questions about the ability to enforce it.
Mr. Chair, this is very important. Let me repeat. If this motion ends up passing, as the opposition holds the majority at this committee, its validity will be immediately questioned and there will be serious questions about its ability to be enforced.
Mr. Chair, we remain opposed to this motion in its current form, containing paragraph (c). It has already been decided upon three times, already twice more than should have been allowed. We leave it to the opposition if they would like to ignore the rules yet again.
Thank you, sir.