I am also ready to rule on the point of order raised by hon. member for Kootenay—Columbia on Monday, April 7, regarding the vote held on Tuesday, April 1, on a private members' business motion standing in the name of the hon. member for Scarborough Centre.
In his point of order, the hon. member for Kootenay—Columbia drew attention to discrepancies between the video recording of the proceedings and the manner in which they were reported in Hansard . The hon. member maintained that Hansard reported the motion as having been carried unanimously, when in fact it was carried on division. He expressed concern that what appeared in Hansard may have been altered to conceal the fact that there was some opposition to the motion.
I wish to thank the hon. member for his interest in ensuring that our records accurately reflect the decisions of this House. Having reviewed both the transcript and the video recording of the proceedings, I can now report to the House on what transpired.
First, I am happy to assure all hon. members that, whatever the confusion that may have occurred in the Chamber on April 1, 2003--and I will return to those difficulties in a moment--the House's decision regarding private member's Motion No. 318, standing in the name of the hon. member for Scarborough Centre, has been accurately recorded as carried.
Second, I would ask the House to note, and I believe it is especially important that this be noted in view of the misinformation that has been circulated concerning this situation, that I have made inquiries and I am satisfied that there was no interference, at any time, by any hon. member or any member's office in the preparation of the final edition of that day's Hansard .
Now let us review the sources of the confusion and the nature of the discrepancies complained of by the hon. member for Kootenay—Columbia. First, it may be helpful to review the manner in which decisions in the House are made and how they are recorded in our publications. These procedures are described in detail in House of Commons Procedure and Practice , beginning at page 481, but I will just summarize them here.
When debate on a question that is before the House has ended, the Speaker asks, “Is the House ready for the question?” If no member rises to speak, the Speaker proceeds to ask, “Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?” At this point, members respond by calling out either “yes” or “no”. If only “yes” responses are heard, the Speaker simply declares the motion carried.
If the Chair hears members call out both “yes” and “no”, then it will ask, “All those in favour of the motion will please say ‘yea’; and then, ‘All those opposed to the motion will please say ‘nay’. Based on the responses given by members, the Speaker will usually state, ‘In my opinion, the ‘yeas’ have it”, or “—the ‘nays’ have it”.
At this point, members can decide to hold a recorded division on the matter. If they do not want a recorded division but want to record that there was some dissent, they may so indicate to the Chair by simply stating “on division”. The Speaker will then declare the motion carried or lost on division and both the Journals and Hansard will reflect that fact.
Alternatively, to hold a recorded division, five or more members must rise when the Chair has declared that the “yeas” or “nays” have it. The Speaker will then say, “Call in the members” and the House proceeds to taking a formal vote, or decides to defer the taking of the vote to some later time.
In my review of the events of April 1, 2003, it is clear that when the motion was declared carried, no one called out, “on division”, nor did five members rise in their places to demand a recorded vote. Given that fact, the Journals for April 1, 2003, at page 642, state that, “the question was put on the motion and it was agreed to”. Similarly, Hansard states, at page 5023, “Motion agreed to”. There is no reference to “on division” because no member called out “on division” at the time the decision was announced from the Chair. A reader might infer from the text that this was a unanimous decision but it is clear that this was a decision where no dissent was recorded.
I will now return to the other concern expressed by the hon. member for Kootenay—Columbia, namely, that the record of these events as published in Hansard, is missing information that can be heard on the videotape of the proceedings.
I agree with the hon. member that a number of the interventions that were made during the proceedings on April 1 were not included in Hansard or were changed in various ways. There was certainly some confusion in the House during the taking of the vote on the private members' business motion. There may have been a number of reasons for this.
For example, as frequently happens in private members' business, the sponsor of Motion No. 318 had exchanged places with another hon. member who had been slated for that time. I understand too that debate on the motion collapsed earlier than expected, thereby causing a vote to be taken when perhaps members had not anticipated one. Finally, this was the first item to come to a vote under the provisional rules governing private members' business. All these factors may have contributed to the situation but whatever the cause, the video record does reveal that a number of clarifications were sought and various corrective interventions were made as the House arrived at its decision.
The staff and editors who prepare Hansard every day work very hard to create a record of our debates that accurately reflects what is said and decided. In so doing, they are authorized to make the grammatical and editorial changes needed to ensure readability.
Hon. members will agree that this work is never easy and I believe that on that evening the staff faced some challenges. In carrying out their responsibilities in this particular case, the staff in Hansard , acting in the interests of readability and in all good faith, decided to eliminate some of the interventions in which members were seeking clarification of what was taking place, and preserve those statements which reflected the decision that the House ultimately arrived at.
The hon. member for Kootenay--Columbia argues that in this instance too much was left out and, although, as I said, I am entirely satisfied that the decision of the House is accurately recorded, I am inclined to agree, especially given the member's intervention, that future readers will be better served if the verbatim transcript is printed in Debates .
I have therefore asked my officials to review the editorial decisions that were made in this case and to make the changes necessary to render the Debates more complete. A corrigendum will be issued in due course.