Debates of Nov. 6th, 2006

Presence in Gallery

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear!

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

I would also like to draw to the attention of hon. members the presence in the gallery of the Hon. Paul Shelley, Minister of Human Resources, Labour and Employment for the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear!

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

The hon. member for Wascana is rising on a point of order.

Business of the House

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Wascana, SK]

Mr. Speaker, given the discussion that took place across the floor during question period about the fundamental importance of a dialogue on Kyoto with the European Union, I wonder if there would be unanimous consent now for the following motion: That while the Prime Minister is travelling to, attending and returning from the Canada-EU summit in Helsinki, the chief government whip or his representative may request the deferral of any division, whereupon the Speaker shall defer the said division to an appropriate time after the Prime Minister has returned from Helsinki.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

Does the hon. member for Wascana have the unanimous consent of the House to propose this motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

There is no consent.

The hon. member for Winnipeg North is rising on a point of order.

Response to Oral Question

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, during question period, in response to a question by the NDP leader, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister said that the NDP does not support mandatory emission standards.

Given the fact that on February 17, 2005, the NDP actually presented an opposition day motion to the House requesting support for a motion legislating mandatory improvements to vehicle emissions efficiency, I am wondering if the member would actually apologize to the House. As well as the nice note that I want to acknowledge he sent, personally apologizing to our leader, I wonder if he would put on record his apology.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

I do not see anyone rising, so I believe that ends the matter. The hon. member for Winnipeg North is very experienced and knows that really what she is arguing is a matter of debate rather than a point of order, but I am sure all hon. members appreciated hearing her submissions.

The hon. member for Burnaby—New Westminster is rising on a point of order.

Standing Committee on International Trade

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising on a point of order that stems from a meeting of the Standing Committee on International Trade held last Thursday, November 2.

Subject to the interpretation of the Speaker, I know that he cited, in relation to a question that was asked by my colleague, the hon. member for Burnaby—Douglas, in a point of order that was raised on October 6, that in relation to legislation before the House in relation to committee members, the House of Commons Procedure and Practice indicates that the Chair will become involved if the question at issue is whether a committee has exceeded its powers in its clause by clause review of a bill.

Mr. Speaker, as you know, Bill C-24, the softwood lumber bill, is before that committee.

Last Thursday, the committee adopted a motion that reads as follows: “That the total number of minutes of debate per amendment per member be limited up to a maximum of three minutes; that three minutes per member also be allotted to the clause, amended or not; that the committee finish clause-by-clause consideration for Bill C-24 by the end of the day on Tuesday, November 7, 2006; that all clauses that have no proposals for amendment be voted on together in one vote at the start of the meeting on Tuesday, November 7, 2006; that Bill C-24 be reported back to the House on Thursday, November 9 or as soon as possible; that the clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-24 be completed before considering any other committee business; and that any debate on motions related to Bill C-24 be limited to three minutes per person, per motion”.

Considering that two clauses certainly go beyond the mandate that was given by the House to the Standing Committee on International Trade, that is, limiting the total number of minutes of debate per amendment to a maximum of three minutes, which is unprecedented, as you know, Mr. Speaker, in parliamentary history, and also that all clauses that have no proposals for amendment be voted on together in one vote at the start of the meeting on Tuesday, November 7, 2006, it gives rise to my point of order.

It is unbelievable that this might happen, but my point of order consists of the fact that the mandate that was given by the House to the committee was to consider, clause by clause, the extensive number of clauses of Bill C-24. There are over 110 clauses of that particular bill, and we now have, in a very real sense, an inability to consider it clause by clause and an inability to propose the amendments. As we know very well, Marleau and Montpetit, at page 874, state, “Motions to amend a clause of a bill do not require notice”.

To this extent, there were no instructions from the House that actually provided that guideline to the committee, and we now have no opportunity for amendments on all of the clauses that might be pushed forward tomorrow morning. We also have a very strict limitation on the ability to improve what is, in my opinion, an extremely flawed bill.

Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned earlier, on October 6, you said that when we talk about clause by clause review of a particular bill, you have the right and the ability to intervene as far as a committee is concerned.

Going back to precedents, I cite from Marleau and Montpetit, footnote 400, which references the minutes of the Standing Committee on Industry, March 23, 1999, meeting 104:

In 1990, following a lengthy examination of Bill C-62, An Act to amend the Excise Tax Act, the Criminal Code, the Customs Act, the Customs Tariff, the Excise Act, the Income Tax Act, the Statistics Act, and the Tax Court of Canada Act, the Chair of the Finance Committee unilaterally terminated debate on a motion to limit further debate and set out a schedule allotting time for the remainder of the Committee’s consideration of the Bill. The Chair’s decision was appealed and sustained by the Committee.

Similar action took place last Thursday, November 2 at the Standing Committee on International Trade.

Further to that notice in Marleau and Montpetit, it states:

The Committee subsequently made a report to the House outlining its concerns about the manner in which debate had been limited and asking that the matter be referred to the Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections.

Today that committee is the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. It continues:

The House concurred in the report... After study, the Privileges and Elections Committee suggested that Standing Order 78 (time allocation) was the appropriate vehicle to use when proposing a limit on committee consideration of a bill.

Standing Order 78(1) states:

When a Minister of the Crown, from his or her place in the House, states that there is agreement among the representatives of all parties to allot a specified number of days or hours to the proceedings at one or more stages of any public bill, the Minister may propose a motion, without notice, setting forth the terms of such agreed allocation; and every such motion shall be decided forthwith, without debate or amendment.

We have a situation whereby a committee has clearly arbitrarily set the most severe limits in Parliament's history on discussion of this bill. The committee has not received those instructions from the House of Commons. Very clearly, precedent shows that when a committee goes beyond what instructions were given to it, the House must provide that direction. So I would ask, Mr. Speaker, that in light of this draconian motion of closure that is being imposed on the Standing Committee on International Trade, you would request of the Chair of the standing committee not to proceed forthwith tomorrow morning, but rather to hold off until you, as Speaker of the House, can make an appropriate ruling in regard to this very draconian abuse of parliamentary privilege.

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Cooperation]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to comment too and maybe help give you some insight into the proceedings that led up to this intervention by the hon. member. The committee adopted the said motion in a recorded vote. I would suggest that this is absolutely parliamentary procedure. If the hon. member had been serious about actually discussing Bill C-24, as the rest of us were trying to do, he might not have spent four and a half hours filibustering committee.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

The point raised by the hon. member for Burnaby—New Westminster, it seems to me, deals with a matter that was dealt with in the committee, not by a Chair making a unilateral decision to impose a rule, but by the committee adopting a motion that brought about time limitation on members and their activities in the committee.

It seems to me from my experience on committees many years ago that it is in fact not an uncommon practice in committee to have motions of this kind introduced, discussed and sometimes adopted, which result in limits on members' freedom of speech in committee. Time limits are not uncommon. I put in an appearance recently before the procedure and House affairs committee where all the members were under time limitations imposed by the will of the committee itself. On occasion I was not even able to answer some of the comments made, because the member had used up all the time. It does happen. It was not that I was desperate to respond, but members can understand my concern when I hear the hon. member for Burnaby—New Westminster raising this issue.

But I do think that committees are masters of their own procedure. They are entitled to make provisions in adopting orders in the committee that govern the way they are going to conduct their business. What Mr. Speaker Fraser's ruling, which I have briefly looked at, said was what committees were allowed to do. The committee is allowed to make amendments to the bill. The committee has imposed rules on how those amendments will be dealt with in the committee and how members will be able to address the issues raised by the amendments. It seems to me that is entirely within the jurisdiction of the committee and indeed is some quite normal exercise of its powers.

Accordingly, I do not find the point of order, so far from what I heard from the hon. member, to raise a valid point of order. I do not believe the committee has exceeded its jurisdiction. The ruling I gave recently on this issue, and I am going from memory from the date to which the hon. member referred, dealt with the amendments themselves and whether amendments exceeded the scope of the bill that had been referred to the committee.

There, I agree, the Speaker may have some jurisdiction to make a ruling if the committee has exceeded its jurisdiction, but that is not the issue the hon. member has raised today. It is a procedural matter within the committee and it seems to me the committee is master of its own procedure and is able to decide which rules it wishes to adopt in respect of the business that it has before it.

While the hon. member may disagree with the committee's decision, I do not think it is for the Chair to exercise the jurisdiction of a court of appeal in that respect, and I accordingly decline to do so.

Government Response to Petitions

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8) I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's response to seven petitions.

Interparliamentary Delegations

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 34(1), I have the honour to present to the House, in both official languages, the report of the Canadian parliamentary delegation of the Canada-Europe Parliamentary Association on the second part of the 2006 ordinary session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe held in Strasbourg, France, from April 10 to 13, 2006.

Justice and Human Rights

[Art Hanger, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the fourth report of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and a motion adopted by the committee on Wednesday, November 1 your committee recommends that the government act with diligence and speed in the matter of the late Wilbert Coffin.

Procedure and House Affairs

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 19th report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs regarding the membership of committees of the House. If the House gives its consent, I should like to move concurrence at this time.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

Is there unanimous consent?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

(Motion agreed to)

Veterans Affairs

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, there have been discussions among all political parties and I think you would find unanimous consent for the following motion. I move:

That, notwithstanding the order made on Friday, October 27, twelve (12) members of the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs be authorized to travel to Ottawa on November 8 and to Montreal on November 20 to visit hospital facilities in order to gain better understanding of the service and care provided to Canadian Veterans, and that the necessary staff do accompany the committee.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

Is there unanimous consent?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

(Motion agreed to)

National Homelessness Initiative

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to table a petition on behalf of the Association pour le Travail de rue D'Autray, in the municipality of Lavaltrie, in the riding of Repentigny.

One hundred and thirteen people signed this petition and truly hope that the government will immediately reinstate the national homelessness initiative, including the SCPI and RHF programs, and that this initiative will be made permanent and receive increased funding.

The Association pour le Travail de rue D'Autray has been subsidized under SCPI since 2001, enabling it to hire a street worker in Lavaltrie.

The young people whose needs are addressed by the association's outreach are directly affected by the loss of services. The problem is worsening, and an increasing number of youth are becoming vulnerable.