I call the meeting to order.
Good morning, and welcome to the 74th meeting of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. This meeting is being held in public.
I'm going to give a bit longer preamble today because we're doing clause by clause.
Today we're proceeding with clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-50, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act in relation to political financing. We have officials from the Privy Council Office, who are here to provide any assistance we need. We have Riri Shen, director of operations, democratic institutions, and Madeleine Dupuis, policy adviser, democratic institutions.
Thank you both for being here if we have any questions.
Before we begin, I'd like to provide members who haven't done this before with some information about how committees generally proceed with clause-by-clause consideration of a bill.
The committee will consider each of the clauses in the order in which they appear in the bill. Once I have called a clause, it is subject to debate and vote. If there are amendments to the clause in question, I'll recognize the member proposing the amendment, who may explain it. The amendment will then be open for debate. When no further members wish to intervene, the amendment will be voted on. Amendments will be considered in the order in which they appear in the package each member receives from the clerk. If there are amendments that are consequential to each other, they will be voted on together.
In addition, to be properly drafted in a legal sense, amendments must also be procedurally admissible. The chair may be called upon to rule amendments inadmissible if they go against the principle of the bill or beyond the scope of the bill, both of which were adopted by the House when it agreed to the bill at second reading, or if they offend the financial prerogative of the crown.
If you wish to eliminate a clause in the bill altogether, the proper course of action is to vote against the clause when the time comes, not to propose an amendment to delete it.
During the process, if the committee decides not to vote on a clause, that clause can be put aside by the committee so that we can revisit it later in the process.
Amendments have been given a number in the top right-hand corner to indicate which party submitted them. There is no need for a seconder to move an amendment. Once an amendment is moved, unanimous consent is required to withdraw it.
Once every clause has been voted on, the committee will vote on the title of the bill itself, and an order to reprint the bill may be required if amendments are adopted so that the House has a proper copy for use at report stage.
Finally, the committee will have to order the chair to report the bill to the House. That report only contains the text of any adopted amendments, as well as indication of any deleted clauses.
I thank the members for their attention. We will now proceed with clause-by-clause consideration.
