Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I wish to raise an issue before the House on the acceptability and admissibility of the motion.
The motion reads:
That this House call on the government to authorize an additional $400 million in emergency assistance for Canadian farm families (over and above all agriculture programs announced or in place to date), to be paid out in 2001—
It is noteworthy, from a procedural point of view, that the motion does not urge the government. It directs the government to do the action in question. The motion does not say that the House ask the government to consider the advisability of spending $400 million. It calls on the government to authorize such an expenditure. I will get to both of those terms in a moment.
In other words, I will argue with the Chair that the motion directs the government to make such an expenditure.
Standing Order 79(1) deals very clearly with this kind of situation. It states:
This House shall not adopt or pass any vote, resolution, address or bill for the appropriation of any part of the public revenue, or of any tax or impost, to any purpose that has not been first recommended to the House by a message from the Governor General in the session in which such vote, resolution, address or bill is proposed.
There is no recommendation for the motion from the governor in council which purports to direct the government to make an expenditure. It is, therefore, in my estimation, out of order.
Marleau and Montpetit, at page 901, indicate how such a motion should be worded. It says:
As an alternative to a bill which might require a royal recommendation obtained only by a Minister, a private Member may choose to move a motion proposing the expenditure of public funds, provided that the terms of the motion only suggest this course of action to the government without ordering or requiring it to do so.
The motion uses extremely definitive language. It does not suggest something to the government. When one calls upon someone to do something, one is not thinking about it or making a suggestion, one is telling or directing someone to do it.
Beauchesne's 6th edition, at page 186, goes into more detail. Citation 616 states:
Motions purporting to give the Government a direct order to do a thing which requires the expenditure of money are out of order.
Citation 617 states:
Abstract motions should use the words, “that the Government consider the advisability of...”
Number (2) of citation 617 states:
When these words are used, it leaves the Government free, after considering the advisability of doing something, to come to the conclusion that it should not do so. There would not, therefore, necessarily be an expenditure of public money involved.
In other words, if one is ordering the government to do something, it causes the expenditure, and if the government does not have the tools to refuse to do that thing, then it is ordered and therefore it requires royal recommendation.
Number (3) of citation 617 states:
An abstract motion does not finally bind the House to make the grant, and it imposes upon the Government the responsibility of either accepting or rejecting the recommendation.
This motion is not at all abstract. It specifies an amount of money. It specifies the recipient. It specifies what is not to be included in the calculation of the amount. It specifies a time limit by which the payment is to be made. All of those elements, not just one or just some, are there. It does not say to the government to go away and think about it or consider it, it says to do it. This is a direct violation of Standing Order 79.
I would like to draw a couple more things to the attention of the Chair. Page 213 of the 6th edition of Beauchesne's, which refers to the royal recommendation, states:
The recommendation precedes every grant of money, the consent may be given at any stage before final passage, and is always necessary in matters involving the rights of the Crown, its patronage, its property or its prerogatives.
This comes from Bourinot , page 413.
You will notice as well, Mr. Speaker, that the motion in question states “That this House call on the government”. I explained extensively why I do not think call satisfies the criteria. However the word authorize is in the motion. That is a word utilized in the estimates, estimates that are tabled in the House pursuant not only to a royal recommendation but signed by the Governor General and we rise in the House to acknowledge the royal recommendation which was made.
Page 1-2 of the main estimates, entitled “The Expenditure Plan Overview”, states:
The 2001-2002 Main Estimates present budgetary spending authorities totalling $163.4 billion.
That is the amount in question. In other words, that language is in the estimate process with which we deal.
Finally, Mr. Speaker might be tempted to say that it has happened on a couple of occasions that the words “call upon the government” have been inserted in a motion put before the House by the opposition. Should the Speaker be tempted to say that that would constitute the precedent on which the Chair might want to rule that the motion is in order, I would suggest that it does no such thing.
First, there may have been two or three such motions in the past. Prior to that they were never accepted. Because no one has challenged him on a point of order in the past, the Chair did not rule on the acceptability of those motions. Therefore, he was not called upon to rule them in order. I believe that this is the first opportunity the Chair has been called upon to do so by a member of the House. I would ask the Chair to consider that particular proposition as well.
Those are points that I wanted to make to the Chair this morning. The motion calls upon the government to authorize an expenditure. It specifies when the expenditure is to be made, who the recipient will be, the timeframe on which to give it and what is to count and not to count as part of that expenditure.
In my opinion, this is not in order.