I appreciate that ruling as well. As I said, the difference with this bill is that clause 6 makes no reference to a carryover but instead provides for a two year window to spend from April 1, 1999 to March 31, 2001. This is against our financial procedures as explained in Beauchesne's citation 933.
The Public Accounts of Canada must refer back to the authorities voted by parliament if the public accounts are to make any sense to parliamentarians and the appropriation which they voted to the crown. If parliament approves two years together then how can parliamentarians properly examine spending for one fiscal year?
I am trying to be brief but I have to get the complex argument on the record. The President of the Treasury Board said in the House on April 24, 1996, at page 1903 of Debates :
—an example of our proposal to amend the Financial Administration Act to allow us to use multi-year appropriation. If approved, we could use this authority with the three agencies where flexibility is warranted.
However, in Your Honour's ruling of June 8, 1999, you said that the notions of fiscal year and annual appropriation are the cornerstones of our parliamentary financial process. The government wants to change our practice and exceed its authority by seeking multi-year appropriation.
In addition, the title does not reflect what is in the bill. The title reads “an act for granting to Her Majesty certain sums of money for the public service of Canada for the financial year ending March 31, 2000”. Yet the bill contains the specific authority to spend funds up to and including March 31, 2001, with no reference whatsoever that it pertains to funds to be carried over from the year ending March 31, 2000. Beauchesne's citation 626 states:
Although there is no specific set of rules or guidelines governing the content of a bill, there should be a theme of relevancy among the contents of a bill. They must be relevant to and subject to the umbrella, which is raised by the terminology of the long title of the bill.
I am almost finished.