Thank you very much.
(Amendment agreed to[See Minutes of Proceedings])
(Clause 48 as amended agreed to)
(On clause 49—Thirty days after royal assent)
Now to clause 49
(Clause 49 agreed to)
We're off to the short title first.
Shall the short title pass?
(Clause 1 agreed to)
Now we get into an area that's a little more tricky for me, and that's the preamble. I have never had to deal with amendments to this area before.
I have my colleagues here, the clerks from the Legislative Branch, who can help me with the understanding of what is and what isn't admissible.
Let me start with amendment NDP-10. The same arguments apply to NDP amendments 10 and 11, so hopefully I only have to say this once.
If I read the amendment first, I think it will help identify why it's inadmissible, that Bill C-36, in the preamble, be amended by (a) adding before line 1 on page 1 the following:
Whereas the Supreme Court of Canada decided in Attorney General of Canada v. Bedford that certain provisions of the Criminal Code have a grossly disproportionate effect on persons who engage in prostitution by putting their health and safety at risk and making them more vulnerable to violence;
—(b) by replacing, in the English version, line 1 on page 2 with the following—
Whereas the Parliament of Canada is
—(c) by adding after line 3 on page 2 the following—
Whereas the Parliament of Canada acknowledges the fundamental importance of addressing poverty, housing conditions, health-care needs and other socio-economic issues impacting women who enter prostitution without a meaningful choice; Whereas all Canadians deserved to be governed by laws that protect their health and safety and prevent exploitation; And whereas the Parliament of Canada recognizes that violence against women in Canada remains a serious issue that needs to be addressed through concerted government action;”
This is part of the preamble. In a sense, it would be front of the preamble that's there now. So that part would be legal, but my ruling is that this amendment seeks to make substantial modification by adding new elements to the preamble that are not reflected in the actual body of the bill in the clauses that we have just dealt with. There were some amendments put forward that you could argue would relate to this addition to the preamble, but they did not pass.
As House of Commons Procedure and Practice, Second Edition, states on page 770:
In the case of a bill that has been referred to committee after second reading, a substantive amendment to the preamble is admissible only if it is rendered necessary by amendments made to the bill. In addition, an amendment to the preamble is in order when it's purpose is to clarify it or to ensure uniformity of the English and French versions….
That was in the technical amendment we just had.
In the opinion of the chair, and in discussions with my colleagues here, the proposed amendment is substantive and is therefore inadmissible. I will point my colleagues to the text just after (c), in particular, where it says “Whereas the Parliament of Canada acknowledges the fundamental importance of addressing poverty, housing conditions, health-care needs and other socio-economic issues impacting women...”. That issue is important, no doubt, but it is not reflected in the actual clauses of the bill. So that amendment is substantially different and, therefore, is inadmissible.
This is something new. It applies to both this amendment and the next one, so I'll give you a few minutes to talk about it. But at the end of the day, we're not voting on it unless you challenge the chair and I lose.