Mr. Speaker, I almost rose on a point of order as to why points of order could not have been heard earlier, but we will leave that for another day.
My point of order has to do with the fate of a particular piece of legislation in the other place that was passed by the House. I am referring to Bill C-15B which in this session became Bill C-10 and was passed by order of the House on October 9, 2002 and received by the other place subsequent to that.
Ironically Bill C-15B which became Bill C-10 has now been broken up into two bills in the Senate. Bill C-15B itself was the product of fragmenting of an earlier piece of omnibus legislation. We might want to have a debate sometime in the House about the advisability of omnibus legislation given the fact that the House itself, and now the other place although illegitimately in my view, have chosen to fragment further omnibus legislation.
Mr. Speaker, I know that you may want to argue that we should not be having a point of order on this until we receive word from the other place with respect to the bill. It seems to me that if that is the case, then we could have another point of order about whether or not we should take preventive action and whether the House should send a message to the other place before the other place sends a message to us, suggesting that the other place should not behave in the way that it has.
I would want to argue, Mr. Speaker, that the House should be very concerned about what has happened in the other place with respect to Bill C-10.
Bill C-10 was accompanied by a royal recommendation which stated:
Her Excellency the Governor General recommends to the House of Commons the appropriation of public revenue under the circumstances in the manner and for the purposes set out in a measure entitled “An Act to amend the Criminal Code (cruelty to animals and firearms) and the Firearms Act.
On November 20, 2002 the Senate passed, on division, the following motion:
That it be an instruction to the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs that it divide Bill C-10, an act to amend the Criminal Code (cruelty to animals and firearms) and the Firearms Act into two bills in order that it may deal separately with the provisions relating to firearms and provisions relating to cruelty to animals.
The effect of this motion, Mr. Speaker, has seen the creation of two new bills in the Senate, Bill C-10A and Bill C-10B.
Last night the hon. Speaker of the Senate upheld the reporting back of the so-called Bill C-10A, which I realize we have not received, and the continued examination of Bill C-10B, which now risks being lost in some procedural maze in the Senate.
It seems to me, Mr. Speaker, that it is this House that should decide what pieces of legislation are divided up and in what way they are dealt with. I say this without prejudice to the fact that I can quite understand the desire of the Senate to deal with these matters separately. I share, as I have already indicated, a concern that a lot of members of Parliament have and obviously a lot of senators have with respect to the nature of omnibus legislation.
Nevertheless, it should be up to the House of Commons to do this because the way in which the Senate has dealt with Bill C-10 has infringed on the financial initiative of the Crown and on the privileges of the House of Commons.