Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to participate in this serious discussion of whether or not Bill S-13 is in order to be pursued in this Chamber.
The member for St. Paul's has put forward some very compelling arguments about why first reading of Bill S-13 would be in order without a royal recommendation. I recommend them to you, Mr. Speaker.
I bring to your attention the specific authority mentioned earlier to help you in your considerations. Erskine May's 21st edition, at page 716, is clear when it states:
The imposition of charges on funds other than the Consolidated Fund or the National Loans Fund does not require the royal recommendation, unless it involves an increased payment out of one or other of those Funds, or increases the liability... upon them, or automatically attracts a grant for moneys provided by Parliament.
The Speaker of the Senate deemed the bill not to have required royal recommendation and therefore sent the bill to this Chamber quite properly according to the rules as they now stand.
Today the government wishes to raise a constitutional principle of money bills not originating in the Senate. Following my Liberal colleague's comments I will also refer to Beauchesne's, page 97, citation 324. These citations deal very much with the House leader's reference to Bourinot's mention of two principles outlined on page 491. The two citations on page 97 and 98 are citations 324 and 325. Citation 324 says:
The Speaker will not give a decision upon a constitutional question nor decide a question of law, though the same may be raised on a point of order or privilege.
Citation 325 says:
In all matters of doubt, the Speaker will consider attentively the opinions of Members. Sometimes, instead of expressing an opinion of either side, the Speaker may ask instructions from the House or reserve his decision on the point of discussion, or suggest that the House may, if it thinks proper, dispense with the Standing Order in a particular case. In doubtful cases, the Speaker will be guided largely by circumstances.
The powers of the Senate are not the only procedural issue at stake here. It would be very useful for us and for you, Mr. Speaker, to consider the broad procedural history of the way tobacco legislation has been treated by the governmental institutions of the country.
Let us remember that the current round of the Tobacco Act, of which in effect Bill S-13 is a part, resulted from the fact that the supreme court ruled that sections of the Tobacco Act were unconstitutional because it held that the government had not provided enough evidence of the public health benefits of the act to infringe upon the free speech rights of tobacco companies. In essence, the court placed the burden of proof on governments if they wish to regulate the advertising of addictive drugs to children. The court effectively gave the act of convincing children to become addicted to a health damaging drug the constitutional protection of free speech.
Earlier the government ignored its deadline in the Tobacco Act for the introduction of tighter regulations on tobacco sponsorships. It has acted as if an agreement it had struck in private with the tobacco companies had the force of law. I brought this matter to your attention, Mr. Speaker, in a point of privilege on September 30, 1998.
It is also worth pointing out that the government is seeking to pursue a technicality to trump a badly needed public health measure to protect children. At the same time it refuses to take effective measures to enforce existing laws against the sale of tobacco to children and is therefore collecting some $80 million a year from the sale of tobacco to children.
If the government is concerned about technicality and is preoccupied with procedure and formality then there is clearly one area where the government should be focusing its attention. It clearly should be looking at technicalities around the enforcement of laws today which restrict the sale of tobacco to young people.
Throughout this sad episode all the legal, constitutional and procedural cards have been stacked against those who want to improve public health and in favour of those who seek to profit from selling an addictive poison.
I ask you, Mr. Speaker, to keep this in mind in your decision, because I think we truly are dealing with a grey matter in terms of procedures and constitutional and legal issues around Bill S-13 before us today. Given that the precise occasions requiring a royal recommendation and the definition of a money bill are in that grey area of procedure and history of procedure in the House, I ask you to give the benefit of the doubt to those who wish to advance the cause of our children's health.
As my final point it is worth mentioning that it is curious indeed that the government, in rising on this point of order, actually has expressed concerns about the democratic rights of the elected Commons versus the rights of the unelected Senate.
Certainly it is causing us some concern because we know this is a government that resurrected the undemocratic practice of routinely introducing government bills in the Senate before the House, something which the New Democratic Party has vigorously protested.
This is the government that has steadfastly refused to act upon calls from the New Democratic Party and millions of Canadians to scrap the unelected Senate, so we think it is rather inappropriate at this point to be focusing so much in terms of constitutional issues and the origins of a bill from the Senate. We believe that the government cannot have it both ways. It cannot use the Senate when it finds it convenient to do so and then hide behind it when it does not want to proceed with a particular measure.
I conclude with the most important message I think all of us concerned about Bill S-13 are raising today, and that is we are procedurally dealing with a grey area. We need to look very much at the circumstances surrounding the bill and the history of tobacco legislation in the country. We need to very much consider the public interest and the health of children in these deliberations. I recommend that position to you, Mr. Speaker.