Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order this morning to challenge the receivability of the motion. The goal of the motion is to suspend the Standing Orders and allow for the imposition of a severe form of closure on a bill at all stages before the bill has been introduced. We have not seen the bill.
While I believe that under unanimous consent such a procedure would be acceptable, that is not the current situation. The government is aware that it would not get unanimous consent from ourselves or another party.
It is obvious we do not have that agreement and this bill is quite onerous. It would legislate a group of workers on a legal strike back to work. The latitude that might be available to the government if there was unanimous consent, or a majority of the parties agreeing to proceed in this fashion, should not be available with half the recognized parties in the House being in opposition to the motion.
I have three reasons why the motion is not receivable. To begin with, the motion is asking the House to accept a piece of legislation for first reading which the House has not yet seen. The bill referred to in the motion is still on notice, having first appeared on the notice paper yesterday and the House will not see the bill until Monday at the earliest, and I am expecting, quite frankly, that it is now going to be Tuesday.
We have a responsibility as legislators not to deal with hypothetical legislation and therefore the motion should not be receivable until the bill to which it refers has at least been tabled in the House and parliamentarians have had the opportunity to see the legislation in full.
The government has, and I acknowledge this, provided each of the opposition parties with a summary of the legislation. It is helpful, but it is only a summary. It would be irresponsible for members of the House to accept the summary in substitution for the full language of the legislation.
Another problem with the motion is that it will have the effect of effectively precluding the possibility of members being able to propose informed amendments to the legislation because the motion would require that the bill proceed directly to first reading, second reading and then into committee of the whole without adjournment except as moved by a member of the cabinet, by a minister.
It is not even clear if a printed copy of the bill will be available for all members by the time the government proceeds with report stage under Motion No. 15. The inadmissibility of amendments at report stage, because the motion refers the bill to committee of the whole even before the House has seen the bill or debated second reading, makes it even more difficult for members to be able to formulate informed amendments and have them accepted in the committee.
Generally, the drafting of amendments, and again, Mr. Speaker, you are well aware of this, takes days. It is not at all clear that such drafting assistance will even be available to members for a bill which the government intends to ram through in a single sitting day of the House.
I submit that the motion is being proposed to procedurally allow the government to do indirectly what it cannot do directly and that violates a long held principle in this place. The government has to be subject to the rules outlined in the Standing Orders. If it wishes to propose changes to the Standing Orders then there are well established ways to do that.
Mr. Speaker, we know that you have been a long standing protector of the Standing Orders, both in terms of what your general role is in the House and more specifically when it comes to this type of manoeuvring by a government to avoid those Standing Orders.
On the specific violations of this principle on the scope of the curtailment of debate which is proposed in the motion, our Standing Orders have remedies available to the government if it believes that legislation must be passed expeditiously.
After introducing the bill it can invoke the procedures in Standing Order 57, or closure, on any specific stage of the bill. What it is trying to do here is to do all three stages, or at least two stages, at one time before we have even seen the bill.
I remind you, Mr. Speaker, that under closure only one stage can be placed under the closure rules at a time. Again, it is trying to do all stages from first reading and printing of the bill to be considered in the same sitting, and possibly, unless a minister rises to ask for it, without adjournment. That is entirely in the hands of the government and it is a nice neat way in its attempt to get around the rules.
Mr. Speaker, I want to raise what I think is perhaps an even stronger argument as to why you should find this motion not receivable. There are provisions within Standing Order 78 that deal with exactly the type of situation we have here. This is an attempt on the part of the government to get around Standing Order 78.
As I know you are aware, the use of Standing Order 78, specifically Standing Order 78.(1), is available to the government when there is unanimity between the parties on the need for time allocation. Similarly, Standing Order 78.(2) is available when a majority of parties have agreed on the need to allocate time on a bill.
There are two sections which allow for allocation of more than one stage at a time, but the situation here is that there are two of four parties, ourselves and the Bloc, not supporting this motion or the idea of the legislation. Therefore, these two sections are unavailable to the government.
It is therefore obvious that Motion No. 15 is an attempt to cast aside these rules in this place. The government is doing this because our rules forbid the imposition of closure or time allocation on multiple stages of a bill without the consent of a majority of parties in this House. It is trying to circumvent the rules and I believe it is attempting to create precedent in doing so.
Just one more point. The government has options to pass this legislation. It could start by talking to the opposition, a suggestion which is clearly an intention of the rules surrounding the curtailment of debate throughout chapter 14 of Marleau and Montpetit.
The government could use either Standing Order 78.(3), moving of time allocation without consent, which would allow the House to decide on allotting time for any single stage of the legislation at a time, or Standing Order 57 to call for closure on any single stage of its proposed legislation.
It can do that starting Monday, but our rules do not allow for the restriction of debate on multiple stages of the legislation without again the consent of a majority of the parties.
We are looking to you, Mr. Speaker, to defend those rules in the face of this assault by the government. We look to you as our Speaker to protect our rights to function under the rules and not to allow for these procedural back door manoeuvres, clearly designed to trivialize the Standing Orders of this place.