Thank you, Mr. Chair.
When I raised a point of order earlier as to whether this meeting is in order, Mr. Chair, you mentioned that it was, but if I may refer to O'Brien and Bosc in chapter 20, page 1047....
Before I read the citation, I would like to say that you also mentioned earlier, Mr. Chair, that we do follow the written rules exactly, but when the written rules themselves do not stipulate something, precise details of X or Y, then we follow common practice and precedents that have been set by practice. This is how jurisprudence is also followed, how the legal system follows it. There's the written law and then there's the common law that judges have created over the years based on precedents they have set, based on legal decisions they have made and that become part of common practice.
So I'd like to cite O'Brien and Bosc, second edition, where it says:
In the absence of written rules, a committee can refer to practice when the members are uncertain as to how to proceed on a particular issue. Practice may also be used as a factor to be taken into consideration by a committee Chair who is required to make a ruling. The starting point in these circumstances is to examine how the committee proceeded in the past. If the analysis must be carried further, the committee can then examine the practice of other committees of the House and the practice of the House itself, if it can be applied to the committee's proceedings.
That's the end of the quote I'd like to read. I don't want to sit here and read the entire O'Brien and Bosc to you. Clearly, in our House of Commons Procedure and Practice manual or book, it states that when the rules itself don't provide exact certainty on a particular issue, practice is what we turn to, what we rely on. For committee meetings, the practice is that they are previously scheduled. For example, for our committee in this current rotation we meet every Tuesday and Thursday morning at 8:45 a.m. until 11:45 a.m.
However, we all know that special circumstances could arise and there are ways of convening a meeting. So the chair in absentia convened a meeting. However, Mr. Chair, I do note that a three-minute notice is not what the common practice is for a new meeting to be called in this place. Looking at the practice of this committee itself in this parliamentary session from my own personal experience, and looking at the other committees of this House—just as O'Brien and Bosc says, you look at the previous practice of that committee, you look at the previous practices of other committees of this House, because the committees, of course, are creatures of the House—if those practices are not sufficient, you look at the practice of the House itself.
For other committees, we know that notice has traditionally been more than three minutes, and we know that the practice for the House itself is a minimum of 30 minutes' notice whenever you're being convened, whenever you're being called to the House. The unplanned calling to the House is generally for a vote when the bells ring, and those ring for 30 minutes. However, Mr. Chair, this time what we had thrown at us, in our faces basically, is a three-minute notice period.
Mr. Chair, now that I've presented some new evidence to you, I'd like you to please clarify for me if the notice of three minutes that was given to us by the chair, through the clerk, at 1:57 a.m. for a meeting to commence at 2 a.m....if that practice of three minutes' notice is actually in contravention of our House of Commons Procedure and Practice. I'd like you to provide some clarification on that, please, Mr. Chair.
Thank you.
