Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order with regard to a matter that occurred in the justice committee. It is a matter that only this House can address and is a matter of interest to all members of this House.
While I recognize that committees are masters of their own proceedings, the justice committee has gone beyond its authority by ignoring an order of this House.
On March 10, 1998 at the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights the chair ruled that a motion passed by this House on October 30, 1997 did not bind the committee. This is confirmed in the letter sent from the chair of the justice committee to the sponsor of the motion, the member for Prince George—Bulkley Valley. In the letter the chair states:
Enclosed you will find a copy of the order of reference on impaired driving dated October 30, 1997. As you can see, no time line was imposed on the justice committee. This project has been considered by both our steering committee and the full committee in planning our future business—we will not reach this project before June.
The order of reference given the committee was contained in two motions. The first motion which carried unanimously read as follows:
That this House call on the government to bring forward a motion pursuant to Standing Order 68(4)(a), to instruct the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights to prepare and bring in a bill to amend those sections of the Criminal Code which deal with impaired driving in order to (a) enhance deterrence; and (b) ensure that the penalties reflect the seriousness of the offence and that the said committee, when so instructed, submit its report to the House no later than May 15, 1998.
Subsequent to the adoption of the supply motion, the committee was so instructed by a motion moved by the Minister of Human Resources Development. I was involved in the negotiations of that instruction, so I do know for a fact from where we come on this particular point of order.
As you know, Mr. Speaker, a motion cannot direct or order the government to take action. That is why the supply motion called upon the government to act. The second part of the motion read “and that the said committee, when so instructed, submit its report to the House no later than May 15, 1998”.
The second part of the motion dealt with the committee. The motion directed the committee and as you know, Mr. Speaker, that is perfectly in order for any motion of this House whether it be a supply motion, a private member's motion, or a government motion.
In Beauchesne's sixth edition citation 760(2), it states that “committees receive their authority from the House itself and the authority of the House overrides that of any committee”. Citation 831(2) points out that “a committee is bound by, and is not at liberty to depart from the order of reference” from the House.
In the last Parliament, the 35th Parliament, the Special Committee on Code of Conduct was given a reporting date by the House. The committee could not and did not decide on its own when to report to the House. When the committee found itself crunched for time it had to come back to the House and seek authority to extend its reporting date.
Also in the last Parliament there were two important rulings regarding committees and orders given committees by the House. On June 20, 1994 and November 7, 1996 the Speaker ruled that “while it is a tradition of this House that committees are masters of their own proceedings, they cannot establish procedures which go beyond the powers conferred upon them by the House”.
Mr. Speaker, I would also like to address at this time the fact that there are two motions in play on this issue. If you consider our practices regarding the management of our business, there is often more than one motion dictating the business of the House and its committees. Superseding motions for example are always acceptable motions, such as motions to adjourn debate.
We often pass motions that prescribe the way debate is conducted. The actions in the motions are triggered by events that may happen during debate. For example, during late night debates the words “when the last member rises” often trigger the question being deemed put and the vote deferred to a determined time.
Time allocation motions often address the report and third reading stages of a bill. It presupposes that the report stage will carry and that the third reading debate will proceed and be guided by the time allocation motion. Such an order waits until the business is called even though that business may never be called.
What is disturbing about this issue is that it is the justice committee of this House that is at the centre of controversy once again.
It was the justice committee that refused to report a private member's bill to the House, which triggered a number of questions of privilege and resulted in a Speaker's ruling allowing a new procedure to deal with insubordinate committees.
It was the justice committee that restricted an opposition member's participation contrary to the rules of the House that led to the Speaker's intervention of November 7, 1996.
It was the justice committee that ignored an order of the House in regard to the drafting of a national victims bill of rights that we put forward in this House on April 26, 1996. That has not been dealt with since in the justice committee.