Okay, we shall move to clause 307. We have three amendments: LIB-225, LIB-226, and LIB-227.
Your chair has a ruling.
Bill C-45 amends the Employment Insurance Act to continue the hiring credit for small business for 2012. This amendment, LIB-225, proposes to increase the threshold for the eligibility criteria so that more businesses would qualify for the refund. Additionally, consequential amendments—LIB-226 and LIB-227—would increase the size of those refunds, while still respecting the overall $1,000 limit.
House of Commons Procedure and Practice, second edition, states at pages 767 and 768:
Since an amendment may not infringe upon the financial initiative of the Crown, it is inadmissible if it imposes a charge on the public treasury, or if it extends the objects or purposes or relaxes the conditions and qualifications specified in the royal recommendation.
In the opinion of the chair, the amendment would significantly change the mechanisms of this refund, which would alter the terms and conditions of the royal recommendation. Therefore, I rule this amendment, LIB-225, inadmissible. Amendments LIB-226 and LIB-227 are also, in the opinion of the chair, consequential to this amendment and, therefore, also inadmissible.