I have considered the point of order raised by the hon. member for Prince George—Peace River in relation to the motion under Standing Order 56.1 put forward by the government House leader.
I refer hon. members to Standing Order 56.1 which reads as follows:
In relation to any routine motion for the presentation of which unanimous consent is required and has been denied, a Minister of the Crown may request during Routine Proceedings that the Speaker propose the said question to the House.
For the purposes of this Standing Order, “routine motion” shall be understood to mean any motion, made upon Routine Proceedings, which may be required for the observance of the proprieties of the House, the maintenance of its authority, the management of its business, the arrangement of its proceedings, the establishing of the powers of its committees, the correctness of its records or the fixing of its sitting days or the times of its meeting or adjournment.
Given those quite general words, I note the motion put forward by the government House leader provides for an end to debate on two bills to be next Thursday.
As the hon. member for Prince George—Peace River points out, I had previously given a ruling that expressed some concern about the use of this Standing Order as a means to avoid using time allocation or closure or some other limit on time for debate, and I invited committee response. None has been forthcoming since the ruling which he referred to in 2001.
Therefore, in the circumstances, having expressed reservations and having got no feedback from the committee to the House on this point, which then the House might have dealt with it if the House shared my concern, I do not feel it is for me to rule out of order a motion that appears to be in compliance with the Standing Order, as had happened before and I made no ruling saying that it was out of order. I expressed concerns, but allowed the motion to proceed at that time. I believe having had nothing back, I can only allow this one to proceed at this time, particularly so when the time allocated here is much more generous than would be the case under closure or under time allocation because of the minimum times that are permitted. Accordingly the motion appears to be in order.
I have to deal of course with this other argument about section 49 of the Constitution. I note that this Standing Order has been in force for some time. It has been used in the House for a number of years. I point out that the Constitution, while I am not here to interpret that, says that questions arising in the House of Commons should be decided by a majority of voices other than that of the Speaker, et cetera.
I believe those are questions of substance. It is quite clear that the use of Standing Order 56.1, while allowing the House then to determine things in relation to its affairs that are not substantive matters, that is passing laws, may be done by using this technique. The passage of bills in the House, the passage of motions in relation to bills are clearly questions that require a majority of the House. There is nothing in the provision here or in our Standing Orders that would allow a bill to go through the House that had not received the support of a majority of voices in the House, as defined in section 49 of the Constitution Act.
While there may be arguments to be made in other places, I believe the House is master of its own proceedings. It has chosen to adopt this Standing Order as a basis for proceeding in respect of House business and has specified in the words of the Standing Order the things that can be done under it. I find the motion fits under it. While the wording of the Constitution would appear to fly in the face of this, in my view it would apply to questions of substance that are decided by the House, not matters of internal procedure, which the House can decide on its own initiative and which it clearly did when it set up this Standing Order by virtue of its adoption in the House with a majority of the members voting for it, because that is how the Standing Order got into place.
If a majority chose to delegate powers for certain purposes to a group of 25 or more members, I believe it was within the power of the House to make that kind of delegation. Accordingly I intend to put the motion to the House.