Mr. Speaker, this is, as I am sure members opposite will point out, my third point of order in regard to the government's motion on the Order Paper in which the House is being asked to call upon the government to ratify the Kyoto protocol.
However, unlike my two earlier points of order, one on which the Chair has reserved, my argument here is not that the motion is not properly on the Order Paper and should not be received by the Chair, but rather that even if it is properly on the Order Paper, it cannot be brought on for debate at this time.
Mr. Speaker, I know you have reserved on a previous matter, but this matter comes down to whether we can proceed at all today.
The issue on this point of order is that the government has failed to follow critical customary practices of the House. In particular, it has failed to ensure that accompanying any motion asking that the House call upon the government to ratify a treaty, that the treaty be properly laid before the House.
Professor Peter Hogg, one of the leading constitutional scholars in Canada, when speaking about the practice of government seeking parliamentary approval for ratification of a treaty, states at pages 11-4 and 11-5 in the latest edition of his Constitutional Law of Canada :
The government will lay the treaty before Parliament and move a resolution in each House approving the treaty.
The motion before us is the government's attempt to move the necessary resolution, but the government has not actually laid the treaty before the House.
As you know, Mr. Speaker, whenever Canadian rules of parliamentary procedure are silent on a matter in terms of either our standing orders or Beauchesne's and others, it is open to you to look to the authority and practices of the British House of Commons. In that regard, I would refer to page 251 of Erskine May, 18th edition, which states:
When a treaty requires ratification, the government do not usually proceed with ratification until a period of 21 days has elapsed from the date on which the text of such a treaty was laid before Parliament.
In this case, the government has not laid the text of the Kyoto protocol before the House. Therefore, I would submit that even if the government has properly placed this motion on the Order Paper, it is not open to the House to proceed to consider it until the text of the treaty is laid before us and 21 days have expired after the government has done so.
Erskine May also talks about this 21 day rule not applying in a situation where there is a national emergency concerning the ratification of a treaty, but this obviously is not the case here, notwithstanding the Prime Minister's sudden post-August rush to get ratification.
Therefore, the motion cannot be taken up for debate at this time because the government has not followed the necessary steps in order for the House to consider it.