Mr. Speaker, I will respond to both points raised by the hon. member. On his first point, he said that he wants to introduce a reasoned amendment to amend the bill. An amendment to be introduced while we are at second reading is a reasoned amendment.
Having settled that and to prove my point, someone no less than a former prime minister, the Right Hon. Joe Clark, otherwise known as the member for opposition gallery southeast, has written to the Prime Minister on this very topic referring to this as a reasoned amendment.
We cannot, by way of a reasoned amendment, amend a bill. A reasoned amendment does not amend anything except the motion of a bill not the bill itself. That has to be done either in committee or at report stage. Therefore, the amendment that the hon. member is referring to is impossible under the rules.
I will cite our new procedural manual, which is now being referred to as the M and M. It states that a reasoned amendment, another type of amendment that may be moved at second reading, allows a member to state the reasons why he or she opposes the second reading of the bill. In other words, we cannot amend a bill by doing this, we can only oppose it.
I think that disposes of the first issue because we cannot amend a bill by way of an amendment at second reading. An amendment at second reading is a reasoned amendment, the effect of which is only to oppose a bill.
On the issue of the title of Bill C-20 in reference to Erskine May, the hon. member across refers to page 461. The citation states “A public bill is in the form of a draft statute, and when first printed—”. It only becomes a statute once it has received royal assent and then it needs proclamation by His Excellency pursuant to an order in council, unless it is in the bill, in order to become law. It goes on to say it should “be consistent with existing law or contain such amendments—as are necessary—”.
The reference here is that if we have a bill that amends an existing law it must state in it which existing law it amends. Therefore, if we did not have that, there would be no way of reconciling the bill with the statute to which it will be later appended. As it pertains to a bill creating new law as opposed to amending existing list, this of course does not apply.
In reference to how the title itself works, this is an act to give effect to the requirement for clarity, which is self-evident, and the reference to Quebec secession is the reference of the supreme court. This is to give effect to a supreme court issue and this is the greater explanation of what the supreme court reference is about. That is the reason why it is stated that way. I submit that this bill is perfectly in order.