Mr. Speaker, I gave notice to both the Deputy Speaker and to the Table yesterday that I intended to rise on a point of order regarding the amendment to the motion that was put yesterday by the hon. House leader of the official opposition.
The amendment that was moved yesterday by the hon. member was to amend the government motion in a way that would have the House come back only in September, albeit on a slightly different date than the one on which we would normally return. On the other hand, Motion No. 17 would have the House continue to sit, arguably after today and continuously until the particular program was adopted.
The point I am making to Your Honour is that the purpose of the amendment is the opposite of what the main motion does. Mr. Speaker, I draw to your attention citation 578(2) of Beauchesne at page 176, which states:
An amendment which would produce the same result as if the original motion were simply negatived is out of order.
That has been the rule since June 23, 1990 and it can be found at page 435 of the Journals for that day.
There is a further reference in citation 575 which says that a six month hoist or a reasoned amendment may only be applied against the reading of a bill, not against a motion. In other words, we cannot, by way of amending a motion, give an effect which is similar or identical to what we would have by producing a reasoned amendment. My argument is that this is exactly what the amendment does.
I now draw to your attention page 453 of Marleau and Montpetit where it says:
An amendment should be framed so that, if agreed to, it will leave the main motion intelligible and consistent with itself. An amendment is out of order if:..it would produce the same result as the defeat of the main motion.
In intent, we have a motion before the House to sit now and presumably have a summer recess later. The amendment would produce a recess now and Parliament would come back in September. That is the exact opposite one of the other.
The argument of the House leader for the official opposition will be that it is marginally different in the sense that in coming back in September, we would come back on the 12th instead of on the 19th. That is still inconsequential to the main proposition.
The fact is that the motion moved by the hon. government House leader is to have us sit now to deal with legislation. The amendment produced is to delay that until the fall, which is the opposite of the main motion.
I would argue that should be examined before the vote is taken tonight to determine whether or not my allegation is correct; in other words, that the motion as amended would be out of order because it does the reverse of the main motion. By voting against the main motion, we would achieve almost 100% of the same result as voting for the amendment, which is another proposition raised in Marleau and Montpetit and in Erskine May in that regard.