I move:
That the amendments made by the Senate to Bill C-18, an act to suspend the operation of the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, be concurred in with the exception of amendment 1 in clause 2 to which this House proposes the following amendment:
Strike out "the sixth day of February" and substitute "June 22".
And that a Message be sent to the Senate to acquaint Their Honours therewith.
Madam Speaker, in proposing the motion I wish to take the opportunity to reaffirm the government's intention and desire to have in place an impartial readjustment of electoral boundaries based on the 1991 census for any election to be held at the end of a normal life of a Parliament with a majority government. I am speaking of an election in 1997 or 1998.
We think the original timetable proposed in Bill C-18 would have permitted this to happen. Bill C-18 proposed a two-year suspension of the process while the entire process was itself being reviewed by a parliamentary committee. We did not consider this to be a minimum time for such a review but a maximum time setting an outside limit for completing the review and passing the necessary legislation.
By order of the House, the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs has been instructed to bring in legislation to update this process, with an ultimate deadline for a report for this purpose of December 16, 1994. This is the date when the House is scheduled to begin its winter adjournment which, under the rules of the House, ends on February 6, 1995.
It would be only after that date that the rest of the legislative process on any bill would be undertaken. I am speaking of a further committee stage, report stage and third reading in the House. Then there would have to be consideration in the Senate.
It was our opinion, given the always unpredictable nature of demands on parliamentary time, that a two-year timetable for new legislation was not unreasonable even though, as I said, we regarded this not as a minimum but a maximum time.
It has since become clear, however, that there is some considerable concern in parts of the country that this maximum would become a minimum and therefore that the provision for a two-year suspension appeared to make it impossible for an election in 1997 or 1998 to be held on the basis of new boundaries.
The amendments proposed by the Senate do attempt to address this concern. The amendments in effect would provide that the suspension of the process would last only until February 6, 1995, and if no change to the process were legislated by that date the existing process would automatically be resumed where it left off.
It is the government's intention to reassure the public of our desire that a general election taking place at the end of the normal term of the present Parliament be held on the basis of the 1991 census. Therefore we are prepared to accept the Senate formulation except on one point, and that is we do not view the date of February 6, 1995 as being appropriate or realistic.
As I have said, this date does not recognize the timetable already ordered by the House for the preparation of new legislation on this matter. It does not recognize the provisions of the rules of the House for an adjournment between December 16, 1994 and February 6, 1995. It represents, it could be said, an inappropriate involvement by the Senate in the right of the House of Commons to set its own agenda. After all, the House ordered on April 19 that a committee prepare legislation no later than December 16 of this year, the date on which as I have said under the rules of the House we will be adjourning until February 6.
It must be emphasized that it is already the stated intention of the House of Commons, expressed by its order, not just the intention of the government, to have the procedure committee bring in legislation to reform and update the process of redistribution.
There are many areas the committee will likely want to consider. Some have been raised already when the bill was before the House at earlier stages of debate. I am sure they will be discussed again in detail in the committee hearings and when the committee reports. However today I do not intend to anticipate what may be in the report or presume to suggest what the committee may have in the report in question.
I intend to conclude by saying that the government concurs in the Senate amendments but asks for one amendment to them, that is that the legislation have a more realistic timetable in it for the completion of the review, a June 22, 1995 date rather than a February 6, 1995 date.
Therefore the government asks the House to accept the Senate amendments subject to the amendment I have put forward to create a more realistic timetable.