Mr. Speaker, the member for St. Albert is arguing that Standing Order 73 should not
be applied to this bill. I think it might be helpful to recall why Standing Order 73 was adopted unanimously by the House.
It was in response to a concern among the public and parliamentarians that members of Parliament needed to have more ability to play a real role in the development of legislation and not to be constrained unduly by the government's intentions with respect to legislation. For that reason, the government did introduce into the House an amendment to the standing order allowing any bill to be referred to a committee before second reading so that the committee of ordinary members of Parliament would not be constrained by the intentions of the government in examining the issue of the bill and making the appropriate recommendations back to the House.
As the member for St. Albert said, by referring a bill to committee before second reading, the standing order allows a parliamentary committee to look at the principle of the bill and to not be constrained in proposing amendments which are consistent with the principle. It allows those members of Parliament to examine the entire issue that the bill addresses and to go beyond the scope of the bill.
My colleague quoted Beauchesne. I would like to point out that the citations he referred to predate the adoption of Standing Order 73 and therefore are superseded by Standing Order 73.
Both the government in introducing the change to the standing orders and the House in adopting it unanimously did not in any way limit which bills could or could not be referred to a committee before second reading. That was left to the discretion of the government in proposing that a bill be referred before second reading and, more important, to the members of the House to vote on the proposal to send a bill to committee before second reading.
I do not think that citations and interpretations which were made before the House expressed its will to give members of Parliament more latitude and scope to influence legislation without restriction should supersede the views expressed by Parliament.
This whole issue of members of Parliament having more influence, particularly on matters of expenditure and taxation, was studied for over a year by the subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, of which I and the member for St. Albert are members. Throughout the study our discussions on Standing Order 73 concerned how to give members of Parliament more influence, in line with the wishes which we heard from Canadians. Hopefully the report of that subcommittee will be tabled before Parliament in the near future.
Frankly I am astonished that the member for St. Albert is proposing that members of Parliament and the standing committees should not have the expanded scope that Standing Order 73 intended to give them.
Finally, the committee is constrained by the will of the House, as expressed in the ways and means motion. The member should be aware of that. The committee has to act within the authority it has been given by Parliament.
What the member seems to be suggesting is that a committee, in exercising this new responsibility under Standing Order 73, should not be constrained by the directions of the House. I find his argument somewhat confusing. He says that because it is a decision of the House, the House does not have the authority to act in accordance with Standing Order 73, but if it does then the committee should not be constrained by other decisions of the House. There is a contradiction there.
However, the fundamental principle is that Standing Order 73 was adopted by the House to allow committees to have the scope to examine the principles of a bill, the scope of a bill, and to bring back its best recommendations to Parliament. Parliament will ultimately decide.
The committee of course will exercise its new responsibilities in accordance with the directions it has received from the House, including the ways and means motion.