Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands for brilliantly defending his Bill C-270 before the Sub-committee on Private Members' Business so that it was declared a votable item.
My analysis of the bill, which contains only one clause, was made easier by the member's kindness in sending me an article he published in the Canadian Parliamentary Review in the summer of 1990 on supply bills and the Governor General's special warrants.
The article is quite detailed and refers to the particular situation the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands described earlier.
I will not linger over the 1988 and 1989 precedents, which I read. Rather, I will try to situate this debate in terms of the cardinal principles of the parliamentary system.
The debate on the sole clause in Bill C-270 means basically going back over the whole of British parliamentary history. In my opinion, we have to go as far back as 1215 to discover the rules governing us today. The issue being raised today was raised in other terms in the baronial rebellion of 1215, which led to the signing of the Magna Carta.
What were the barons after? The possibility of being judged by their peers and the power to control spending by the crown. The year was 1215. Nearly a thousand years later, we are faced with the same problem, the intensity is different and the context is different, but the same thread runs through it.
King John, nicknamed John Lackland, was not without land for no reason: he had sold it for his war effort. The barons did not want to finance him any more; hence his name. Most of his French possessions had been sold and he found himself in a position where his name went into the history books.
King John conceded the Magna Carta in 1215. It was the forerunner of our parliaments and gave the barons the right to control spending. It did not last very long. When the king's situation improved somewhat, he tried once again to impose his priorities. In 1256, new rebellions broke out, and the Provisions of Oxford essentially renewed the Magna Carta's control over spending by the crown and the individual freedoms of the nobility-to be sure. At the time, little if any attention was paid to the ordinary folk, who were in a state of considerable servitude. We have come a long way.
Then what happened? Of course the crown gave the barons and then Parliament the right to control public spending, except no sessions of Parliament were planned. If it had no spending to approve, Parliament was not required to meet. This gave rise, over the centuries, to some strange situations where Parliament did not convene for 20 or 30 years at a stretch. Pressure was again brought to bear, and the people's elected representatives again demanded that Parliament be required to convene at least once a year. That was four or five hundred years ago.
The Constitution Act, 1867 flows directly from these, I was almost going to say medieval, struggles to have Parliament's sittings enshrined in law. Today, section 20 of our Constitution states that Parliament must sit at least once a year, and, since 1982, this obligation has been extended to the provincial legislatures.
Need I point out that another section of our Constitution, section 53, which is based on what was happening in Great Britain at the time, also deals with these questions? When we say that any bill involving financial expenditure or allocation of public money must originate in this House, we are recognizing clearly the control and decision making power of elected representatives over the management of public finances.
Naturally, the government sets its budgetary priorities. This is one of the primary responsibilities in its budgetary policy statement. But in our system of Parliamentary democracy, the government cannot remain in power without the support of members for its budgetary policy statement. One may or may not be in agreement with policies, but one rule that is a well established part of our constitutional conventions, although it is not written down in any text of law, requires that in financial matters, the government must always have the confidence of the House. Over the years, ministerial responsibility has become more relaxed, but certainly not to the extent of not applying when it comes to spending public money.
Of course, as the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands has mentioned, the provisions which make it possible to govern by special warrant of the governor general are set down in law as being measures that must be applied in case of emergency, when there is a requirement to act rapidly and Parliament is unavailable. The best example of Parliament's unavailability, if I may put it that way, Madam Speaker, is when the House has been dissolved. The government cannot summon a Parliament that no longer exists once a writ of election has been issued. It must wait until Parliament has been reconvened, on the date set out in the writ of election.
Outside of these periods, are there any exceptional situations in which government use of Governor General's warrants would be applicable, knowing full well that the government can indeed recall Parliament, even during recess? This is what we shall see in committee, what we must examine in committee. At the second reading stage, we must stick to the principles themselves which underlie this bill, and these are extremely valid ones. When we have heard the witnesses, we will probably be able to re-examine whether the hon. member's bill is too restrictive or not.
I will recall to mind a precedent in 1985-86, when using Governor General's warrants led to a rather odd situation, namely having to borrow money to use the funds authorized by the Governor General's warrant, but since the time allowed to function under Governor General's warrant is very limited, the lending rate reflected this and we had to pay a higher rate of interest. It would have been far simpler to recall the House and get the supply voted.
My concern, which will be addressed in committee, is that adoption of this clause must put us into a situation like the one that prevails in the U.S. There, virtually every year, or every year there is a legislative or presidential election, sometimes both, there is a road block between the White House and the Congress. This means
that, overnight, government employees start to wonder if they will be paid, if social services can be provided and, in many areas, whether such essential services as the administration of justice, police services, airport services can be provided.
These will be some of the questions we will need to address in committee, but in principle I am pleased to support Bill C-270.