Peter Milliken on Corporate Accountability of Mining, Oil and Gas Corporations in Developing Countries Act

I thank the hon. parliamentary secretary, the hon. member for Scarborough—Guildwood, and the hon. member for Mississauga South for their submissions on this point. I will examine the bill in light of their submissions and return to the House in due course with a ruling in respect to this matter.

There are 16 motions and amendments standing on the notice paper for the report stage of Bill C-300.

Motions Nos. 1 to 16 will be grouped for debate and voted upon according to the voting patterns available at the table.

The Chair does not ordinarily provide reasons for its selection of report stage motions. However, having been made aware of the exceptional circumstances surrounding the committee study of this bill, I would like to convey to the House the reasoning involved in considering these motions.

The note accompanying Standing Order 76(5) reads, in part:

The Speaker...will normally only select motions which were not or could not be presented [in committee].

The Chair takes note that the hon. member for Scarborough—Guildwood sits on the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade, which was mandated to study Bill C-300. Although I believe that the majority of the amendments in his name could have been proposed during the committee consideration of the bill, they were not.

In a written submission to the Chair, the member outlined his efforts to overcome the committee's inability to deal with the bill in the prescribed timelines, even going so far as to move a motion that the committee begin clause-by-clause study of the bill. These efforts proved fruitless, and although the member had submitted his amendments to the committee, he was not afforded the opportunity to propose them.

Having carefully reviewed the sequence of events and the submission made by the hon. member for Scarborough—Guildwood, I am satisfied that these motions could not be presented during the committee consideration of the bill and, accordingly, I have selected them for debate at report stage.

I shall now propose Motions Nos. 1 to 16 to the House.