Debates of Oct. 17th, 1995

Canada-United States Tax Convention Act, 1984

[Elsie Wayne, Progressive Conservative, Saint John, NB]

Mr. Speaker, all the PCers will be voting nay.

[Jag Bhaduria, Liberal, Markham—Whitchurch-Stouffville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be voting against this motion.

[George Baker, Liberal, Gander—Grand Falls, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I presume you will have me down as voting in favour of the motion. That is exactly what I want, and in case any other members want to do the same thing they are free to do so.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

In response to the intervention by the hon. member for Gander-Grand Falls, the vote just taken on Motion No. 1 will be applied to Motion No. 2. Is that agreed?

[Tony Ianno, Liberal, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, on this motion I would like to vote contrary to what I did on the last vote.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

The Chair will need some clarification from the hon. member for Trinity-Spadina. Could he could be more specific? Is he voting yea or nay?

[Tony Ianno, Liberal, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

I am voting for the amendment. I am voting yea.

[Deborah Grey, Reform, Beaver River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question. I know we are applying votes in the interest of saving time and that is great. However I am wondering about the members who leave.

There were members who voted on the first one. Will there names automatically appear? Who knows who has left? Can they leave after one vote and then just have their names on the list for the rest of the night?

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

In response to the hon. member for Beaver River, unless we have a very definite way of doing things such as through a roll call, the Chair assumes that members would be staying for the subsequent vote that would be applied.

[John Nunziata, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. It is a fundamental principle of the House, and you are the guardian of the principles of the House, that in order to be recorded as voting on a particular matter the member's presence is required in the House.

Is the hon. member opposite indicating that certain members left the House?

[An hon. member]

That is right.

[John Nunziata, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Then I do not see, Mr. Speaker, how you can apply a previously held vote to this vote when certain members have left.

If you take that position, I would suggest that you are setting an unfortunate precedent and that in future when this type of approach is taken to multiple votes in the House it would be open for any member to leave the House once the first vote is taken and to have his or her vote applied to each and every other vote taken in the House.

I would ask that you reconsider that position.

[John Solomon, NDP, Regina—Lumsden, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on the same point of order. I wish to inform the Speaker and the House that when this arrangement was made for the sake of speeding up the vote it was assumed that all members would remain in the House during the course of the speeding up of the vote.

I support the contention of the hon. member opposite that if this precedent is set it would be unfavourable and unacceptable to the NDP caucus.

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I respectfully suggest that you take the vote row by row, as usual, on report stage Motion No. 2. Hopefully that will get the process started again.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

I just want to set the record straight if I misled any member of the House. I have no dispute whatsoever with the hon. member for York South-Weston, the hon. member for Regina-Lumsden or any other member with respect to the tradition of the House. I was simply trying to clear the air by saying that yes, the Chair assumes members are staying.

Unless we can actually verify the absence of someone clearly and definitely, obviously the best measure is to take the advice of the chief government whip and take the vote on Motion No. 2.

(The House divided on Motion No. 2, which was negatived on the following division:)

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

I declare Motion No. 2 negatived.

[Doug Peters, Liberal, for the Minister of Finance]

moved that the bill, as amended, be concurred in.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

In my opinion the yeas have it.

And more than five members having risen:

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)