Subcommittee on Private Members' Business Committee on June 15th, 2009

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The rules were changed--

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Is this procedure?

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Yes, it is. He's referring to a procedure.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

No. I'm speaking to the clerk, through you, as to whether or not, when a motion that's non-debatable has been tabled--

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

He's raising a point of order.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

--you can even accept a point of order. That's it: whether or not you can even accept a point of order. Do you not have to call the vote immediately?

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

I am informed that I can allow a point of order.

Go ahead, Mr. Reid.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Under which section, please, does it stipulate that when a motion is deemed non-debatable a point of order can be raised that has nothing to do with the motion that is votable and not debatable?

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Madam Jennings, this point of order--

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

I'm waiting.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

This point of order clearly has something to do with the motion because we're debating whether or not it's allowable for a subcommittee to meet in public, and that's, I think, the point Mr. Reid is--

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

It's not debatable. It's either votable.... I think it should be, until we hear from the--

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

I'm sorry. I'm a bit confused here. It's not my place to say, but procedurally I think Madam Jennings is out of order, in that I was in the middle of a point of order and she interrupted it with something. I guess it's a point of extra-privileged order because it's coming from Madam Jennings. It seems to be her normal belief system that “I'll sort of supersede anything else”. Her normal course of action is now to invite you to make a ruling and then get a vote against your ruling in order to shut down debate, which is really what she's trying to do here.

I just want to draw your attention to Standing Order 91.1(1). That is where we are covered:

At the beginning of the first session of a Parliament, and thereafter as required, the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs shall name one Member from each of the parties recognized in the House and a Chair from the government party to constitute the Subcommittee on Private Members’ Business, which shall be empowered to meet forthwith after the establishment or replenishment of the order of precedence to determine whether any of the items placed in the order of precedence are non-votable according to the criteria adopted by the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, provided that no item shall be considered by the House unless the condition set out in section (2) of this Standing Order or one of the conditions in Standing Order 92(1)(b) has been satisfied.

All of which are the four criteria we discussed, and the standing order then goes on to say on the “Report of the Subcommittee” that:

After it has met pursuant to section (1) of this Standing Order, the Subcommittee on Private Members’ Business shall forthwith deposit with the clerk of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs a report recommending that the items listed therein, which it has determined should not be designated non-votable, be considered by the House, and that report, which shall be deemed to have been adopted by the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, shall be presented to the House at the next earliest opportunity as a report of that Committee and shall be deemed concurred in as soon as it is presented.

That basically completes the discussion of our subcommittee. You'll notice that nothing in there says that we shall meet in camera. Meeting in camera has been a practice; it is not a requirement. When I consult Marleau and Montpetit, Mr. Chairman, I notice that it does make reference to our subcommittee meeting in camera, but it makes so in an edition of Marleau and Montpetit that came out in the year 2000.

In the year 2002 or 2003 the procedure and House affairs committee changed the criteria under which private member's bills are dealt with. Among the changes was the fact that we went from saying there are 10 items allowed to be votable in each session of Parliament to saying that all items are deemed votable unless they are non-votable for one of the following reasons. The criteria changed too.

So if you read Marleau and Montpetit you see that it's referring to a completely different world in which you have essentially members bidding against each other, coming before the committee, the subcommittee, and making their pitch to the subcommittee.

So it says:

As soon as practicable after the order of precedence has been established at the beginning of each session, but not later than 10 days sitting after that date, the Standing Committee of Procedure and House Affairs must meet to select from the items placed on the order of precedence as a result of the draw up to 10 items to be designated as “votable items”.

It says up to 10 items in a Parliament. This is what Marleau and Montpetit say when they are saying the meetings should occur in camera.

So this is a very different world they are referring to. Now listen to what happens next:

Being selected as votable should not be construed as a guarantee that the House will adopt the bill or motion.

Certain items which may be selected as votable are nonetheless not to be included as part of the list of 10 votable items, since they were not placed in order of precedence as a result of the draw.

They then go off and list some of the criteria that are going on.

The expectation here at that time was that the subcommittee would consult with the sponsors of each bill. I will just quote from Marleau and Montpetit again. This is on page 909:

It has been the practice since 1986 for the Committee to consult with the sponsors of each bill or motion placed on the order of precedence before making its selection of votable items. Each Member sponsoring an item on the order of precedence is invited to appear before the Committee in a public meeting to make a short presentation explaining why his or her item warrants additional debate and being put to a vote in the House. Each presentation may be followed by a brief question-and-answer period. The Committee has traditionally selected votable items by consensus rather than on the basis of votes.

A Member may ask the Committee not to select his or her item as votable by notifying the clerk of the Committee. This item will still remain on the order of precedence and be debated as a non-votable item.

So this is a very different world in which members were making special pleas before this subcommittee as to whether or not their items should be designated votable. Sometimes they would have to speak as to why their item should be put on the list as opposed to another person's item. Frequently they were of a similar nature. It was often the case that you'd have more than one member presenting on the same day or even at the same time in order to work out which of a number of items should be designated votable.

So it would have been conceivable under those rules that Ms. Hoeppner's Bill C-391 and Mr. Breitkreuz's Bill C-301 would have come before this committee together. They would have made their case as to which of the two should be made votable, and in the end the committee could have said we choose one over the other, or I suppose they could have said they would choose neither.

The point is that what you didn't have was a situation in which items were dealt with in a Court of Star Chamber, with the person not having the right to be there to see how their item was dealt with, with no record of what happened and indeed with the sanction of contempt of Parliament against anybody who indicated what was going on, including actions taken by members to kill something on the basis of completely unparliamentary criteria, on the basis of just rewriting the rules as they see fit or their interpretation of the rules as they see fit.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Could you please wrap up your point of order? I want to get on with the motion.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Yes, absolutely.

What is going on is in reference to a rule that does not exist in terms of the requirement that we be meeting in camera. An effort is being made to ensure that Bill C-391 can be killed quietly by the other parties, the opposition parties, in order to ensure that they don't have to suffer the embarrassment of revealing that they in fact call this one thing--

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

I'm going to call the motion. You are going beyond the point of order.

Ms. Jennings, you made the motion that we move in camera.

Ms. Jennings.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

I move that this subcommittee move in camera.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Okay. That's non-debatable and non-amendable.

We'll have a recorded vote.

(Motion agreed to: yeas 3; nays 1)

[Proceedings continue in camera]