Mr. Speaker, I would like to raise a point of order with regard to the receivability of government Motion No. 8.
I believe the introduction of this motion at this time defies logic and challenges the ability of members to represent their constituents. Members are being asked to consider time allocation on a bill that has not yet been tabled in the House, a bill for which a ways and means motion has just been passed. This, in itself, puts members in a difficult position. We are asked to make a judgment on the requirement to limit time for debate when we have not even had the opportunity to review the bill, because it has not been tabled in the House.
I believe time allocation or closure must be considered in context. I would suggest there is no way of determining at this point that the government's ability to advance its program, which is the operative phrase, the key phrase in O'Brien and Bosc, has suffered any difficulty whatsoever.
There is no indication at this point that there is any reason to believe time allocation is required or necessary. Given that the bill has not been tabled, the ability of the government to move it through various stages has never even been tested. Perhaps an argument for time allocation could be justified if the bill had been tabled, if it had come up for debate and if it had somehow become bogged down in the process, but we are in no position to judge that at this point.
There is no evidence to show that such a bill would not proceed through the House within the usual parameters. There is no evidence therefore that the government's ability to advance its program has been impeded.
It is also difficult to justify to my constituents that such a massive suspension of the usual process for consideration of legislation is necessary. Without the bill being tabled in the House, it is impossible to know why this legislation will require such a significant change.
This is particularly important given that this is a tax measure. The government has told us in the motion that the bill it wants to limit debate on has to do with an amendment to the Excise Tax Act. Tax changes, increases to taxation are surely an issue, a subject which requires careful consideration. Surely our constituents deserve the due diligence of members on a new tax measure, perhaps especially on a new tax measure. Surely that due diligence requires the engagement of the usual process for the consideration of legislation in the House.
These time limitations will severely curtail the ability of Canadians to make their views on legislation known, through their MPs during the debate at various stages of the bill in the House and through their ability to participate in hearings on the bill during committee consideration.
In the development of our democratic traditions, we have often heard the rallying cry of “No taxation without representation”. Short-circuiting the usual process challenges the idea that citizens will have an opportunity to participate in the decision about an increase to the taxes they pay. It will also deny the usual opportunities to improvement of the legislation that regularly results from engaging in the legislative process.
I suspect my constituents would appreciate that such a suspension of the usual process might be justified in the case of an emergency, where speed was essential. I would suggest this is not the case today. The fact that the HST is hugely unpopular in British Columbia and Ontario might be a serious political consideration for the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party, but is not in any an emergency situation that merits abandoning the established and usual legislative process.
We should note that the government's own estimation is this measure would not come into effect until July, mid-2010, which gives ample time for engaging the usual process.
A motion such as this should only be in order if it can be demonstrated that the government has suffered some kind of setback in advancing its program or that there is some kind of emergency that requires such a suspension of the usual legislative process. There has been no setback to the government program because the bill has yet to be tabled. There is no emergency because even by the government's own timetable there is lots of time to engage the usual process.
I would urge you, Mr. Speaker, to find this motion out of order.