Madam Chair, I would like to clarify that it really is an interpretation problem, I feel, because I did not say that they were playing the victims.
Madam Chair, if we needed proof that this bill is no longer what it was at the outset, a private member's bill, that is, we had that proof yesterday evening. We certainly have confirmation that it is now a government bill. The 30-day extension in order to expand the scope of Bill C-425 shows the same thing.
Let us tell those who are listening to us that the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism is perfectly capable of introducing a government bill himself. It will give him all the freedom he needs to include his own amendments that he wants to make to Bill C-425 and, not to put too fine a point on it, that he wants to impose on this committee.
Before resuming the remarks that I was making last night, or, perhaps I should say, very early this morning, I would like to insist once more on the importance of the level of decorum and respect to which we as parliamentarians are held.
As a result of this request for the extension and the amendments submitted during the study on the amendments introduced during the discussion on Bill C-425, this became a question of privilege. I would like to share the matter of privilege with the committee and also the decision made by the Speaker of the House in reply to that request:
Mr. Speaker, I rise today on the question of privilege—which is not truly a question of privilege—raised by my colleague from Toronto Centre. The question has to do with the eighth report of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, which recommends to the House that it: ...be granted the power during its consideration of Bill C-425, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act (honouring the Canadian Armed Forces) to expand the scope of the Bill such that the provisions of the bill be not limited to the Canadian Armed Forces.
Clearly, a question of privilege had to be raised so that we could see if the eighth report could make a claim for Bill C-425 to be extended.
From the outset, Bill C-425, the bill the committee has been dealing with, was a private member's bill, and I can never remind you of that enough. With the request to expand the scope of the bill, here we are again discussing the procedure.
I would like to review for you the reasons why the request should be ruled out of order. However, before I do so, I would like to set the record straight about what my colleagues have said up to now.
When the honourable government House leader, the member for York—Simcoe, spoke last April 25, he misled the House by insinuating that the eighth report of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration was asking for:
…the House to debate it for a number of hours and decide whether we think it is within the scope…
As you know, Madam Chair, that is not the case at all. The report does not ask us to judge whether the suggested amendments are within the scope of the bill. On the contrary, as I will explain later, the committee has clearly demonstrated that it knows the proposed amendments go beyond the scope of the bill. In fact, the bill, which was really limited to recognizing and honouring the Canadian Forces, was all of a sudden fixed up with amendments that clearly went beyond its scope and changed it into a different bill entirely. The report asked the House to empower, or not empower, the committee to expand the scope of the bill, not to pass judgment on amendments that could subsequently be introduced at committee.
I must also add that the honourable member for Toronto-Centre clearly did not do his homework by hastily talking about adopting the report before a motion to adopt it had appeared on the Order Paper. Procedure follows procedure and things are moving quickly, but they did not really conform to the legal procedures of the House. This caused some problems and led us to turn to the Speaker of the House.
So a committee is within its rights to ask for instructions from the House about extending the scope of a bill. In the second edition of the House of Commons Procedure and Practice, O'Brien and Bosc are clear on the matter:
Once a bill has been referred to a committee, the House may instruct the committee by way of a motion authorizing what would otherwise be beyond its powers, such as, for example:…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.
That is precisely what the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration is seeking to do through its eighth report. However, and I am now getting to the point of my comments, there is a limit to the instructions that the House may give to a committee. Once again, I quote O'Brien and Bosc:
A motion of instruction will be ruled out of order if it does not relate to the content of the bill, if it goes beyond the scope of the bill (for example, by embodying a principle that is foreign to it …)
Madam Chair, this passage is critical and fundamental, because it indeed states that the main essence of the original bill will be transformed. I will continue to quote my comments on the matter of privilege:
That is why, Mr. Speaker, I firmly believe that you must intervene and rule that the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration's request for instruction is out of order. This request is far too broad and does not allow the House to determine if the committee is likely to include a principle that is foreign to the bill. There is some precedent where motions of instruction were deemed to be in order and were debated in the House. However, in each of those instances, the instructions were far clearer than those sought by the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration today.
When I mention amendments that are far clearer, it simply means that, when making amendments, attention must be paid to the nature of the original bill; amendments must be restricted so that they cannot alter the nature of the original bill. We have an example on April 27, 2010, when my colleague, the honourable member for Nanaimo—Cowichan proposed the following motion of instruction:
That it be an instruction to the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development, that it have the power during its consideration of Bill C-3, An Act to promote gender equity in Indian registration by responding to the Court of Appeal for British Columbia decision in McIvor v. Canada (Registrar of Indian and Northern Affairs) to expand the scope of the Bill so that a grandchild born before 1985 with a female grandparent would receive the same entitlement to status as a grandchild of a male grandparent born in the same period.
Madam Chair, that motion was very clear and was rightly ruled to be in order. The Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development was therefore given permission to expand the scope of the bill, but within very precise limits on the way in which the committee could do it. There were clear and precise instructions to prevent the scope of the original bill from being transformed and diverted away from its original intent. By stating its position on the bill, the House could be assured that the committee would not include in the bill a principle that would be foreign to it.
Conversely, the motion of instruction that we have before us comes right out and asks the House for the power to expand the bill to the extent that it would not just apply to the Canadian Forces. Exactly what does that mean? How does the committee want to amend the bill so that it would no longer apply solely to the Canadian Forces?
As it currently stands, the bill allows, among other things, permanent residents who are members of the Canadian Forces to obtain citizenship more quickly. Of course, we are in favour of that. By asking that the bill apply not just to the Canadian Forces, is the committee hinting that it would like to amend the bill to allow permanent residents working in professions that have no relation to the Canadian Forces to obtain citizenship more quickly?
In our discussions at committee, in the presence of the witnesses we called, we have actually brought up the possibility of extending Bill C-425 to others, not just those who want to enlist in the Canadian Forces. Clearly, this private member's bill was limited to the Canadian Forces and our suggestion was ruled out of order.
Madam Chair, this is not clear at all. How can the House make a decision about a motion of instruction like this when it is impossible to know how the committee will proceed and whether or not it will try to include in the bill a principle that is foreign to it?
I would also add that, if this motion of instruction to the committee were to be deemed in order, it would create a dangerous precedent. If we allow a standing committee to expand the scope of a bill without precise instructions, we will be opening the door to very sensitive issues, given the current context. Let us not overlook this majority government's propensity for using private members' business to promote its own agenda. When used like that, private members' bills become a way for the government to get round the rules.
Catherine Dauvergne, a professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of British Columbia appeared as an individual when the committee was studying Bill C-425. She could not have more clearly expressed the danger of asking for this kind of instruction:
Second, such a profound change to our Citizenship Act such as the one the minister is proposing must not be done by a process like this, by a private member's bill. That process reduces the time allowed for debate and for this committee to do its work and it protects the changes that the minister is proposing. This is controlling democracy.
We do indeed find ourselves in a situation where debates are scheduled as if the process were for a private member's bill. Those debates will not have the same breadth and scope as they would if we were dealing with a government bill or a departmental bill to which additional hours of debate had been assigned. This would not be the case for a private member's bill.
The question of citizenship is essential; it goes so deep that it affects all Canadians. We cannot decide on a whim that we are going to change the Citizenship Act so quickly and with such little regard for the constitution as we would be doing with the expansion that the minister is asking for in order to get his amendments through.
For the sake of our democracy and our work as parliamentarians, we must have democratic control over our procedures and over the way in which they are used. Section 3 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms Examination Regulations stipulates the following:
3. In the case of every Bill introduced in or presented to the House of Commons by a Minister of the Crown, the Minister shall, forthwith on receipt of two copies of the Bill from the Clerk of the House of Commons: (a) examine the Bill in order to determine whether any of the provisions thereof are inconsistent with the purposes and provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms;…
These examinations allow us to establish and keep our bills within a legal framework, so that we can be sure that the provisions are not going beyond the limits prescribed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The examinations are necessary and fundamental.
By asking standing committees to expand the scope of bills to include suggestions by ministers, the government is avoiding its responsibility to examine legislation as prescribed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms Examination Regulations. With the amendments suggested by the minister, we are in a situation where a private member's bill will be expanded. This makes the bill lose its original nature and turns it into a departmental bill.
With the legal procedure associated with a government bill, we have a legal rationale that allows us to identify the content of any government bill. That is a principle of Parliament and a principle of our democratic roots in the House of Commons.
The constitutionality of private member's business is studied only at the Subcommittee on Private…