Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order concerning an amendment that was offered to the House earlier this day by the hon. member for Kings—Hants which asked that we refer Bill C-65 back to a committee of the whole.
I respectfully submit to the Chair that this is impossible. Bill C-65 was considered by the Standing Committee on Finance and not by a committee of the whole. While the authorities make it clear that if otherwise in order an amendment may be offered at third reading that would recommit the bill, there is no possibility indicated of proposing an amendment to commit a bill to a committee that never considered the bill in the first place.
Such is the result of the motion offered to us today. In other words, a bill cannot be recommitted to a committee that never considered the proposition at all. That is what the amendment offered to the House earlier this day purports to do.
I verified earlier this day whether I could rise on a point of order now notwithstanding the fact that the Chair had received the motion. I have been informed that it is in order to bring it nonetheless because we have not yet arrived at the stage where the motion is actually put. That will occur only at the end of the debate.
I wish to draw attention to citations 731 and 737 of Beauchesne's to support my argument. Section 731 refers to amendment on third reading:
When an order of the day for the third reading of a bill is called, the same type of amendments which are permissible at the second reading stage are permissible at the third reading stage with the restriction that they cannot deal with any matter which is not contained in the bill.
In other words, we cannot introduce a new proposition. Citation 737 of Beauchesne's says in part:
Any member may move to recommit a bill for one of the following purposes:
(a) to enable a new clause to be added to the bill when the House, on report, has passed the stage at which new clauses are taken.
In other words, we have passed report stage and at third reading the purpose would be to try to get that back in.
(b) to enable the committee to reconsider amendments they had previously made.
The committee had not previously dealt with any amendments so this is not applicable in terms of reconsideration. In any case, all this applies only to a motion that is recommitted to the original committee that had received the original proposition.
My point is what occurred today does not satisfy that threshold and therefore the amendment, I contend, is out of order.