Debates of Nov. 7th, 2013

Support for Volunteer Firefighters Act

[Lise St-Denis, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Mr. Speaker, there are a lot of volunteer firefighters in my riding.

I thought that volunteer firefighters were under municipal, not federal, jurisdiction. That is why I do not really understand how the federal government can interfere in something that is pretty much solely under municipal jurisdiction.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thought it was simple, but I will try to give my colleague a clear explanation.

Volunteer firefighters have another job in addition to being a firefighter. For some, their other job is federally regulated. For example, they may work for a bank or the postal service. At present, the provincial law requires employers under provincial jurisdiction to release firefighters. However, if the other job is under federal jurisdiction, the employer does not have to release the employee to allow him to respond to a fire call.

What we are doing is amending the Canada Labour Code so that employers under federal jurisdiction are required to release employees who are also volunteer firefighters. That is what will happen.

A number of other aspects concerning firefighters are under provincial or municipal jurisdiction. For that reason, they are not included in this bill. I chose to include only aspects under federal jurisdiction. That is what we do at the federal level.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Labour and for Western Economic Diversification]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak on the second reading of Bill C-504, an act to amend the Canada Labour Code.

First of all, I, too, like many people in this House, want to not only salute our volunteer firefighters, but our search and rescue folks, and the many people throughout our country who work in our rural and remote communities and ensure that we have a sense of safety. We know that when we have trouble they will be there for us. Again, I think all of us agree, and we salute the very important work that they do.

The bill claims to protect the employment of volunteer firefighters working in a federally regulated business. I think it is important to note that according to the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs an estimated 4.9%, or 4,200, of the 85,000 volunteer firefighters in Canada are hired by federally regulated businesses. We are talking about a very small portion of the workforce.

There are 3,200 volunteer fire departments throughout Canada, with most of them serving small communities with less than 10,000 residents. In many communities, they are often the only local emergency first responders. As I said, if one has ever travelled through a community that is rural or remote, knowing they are there is critically important.

I know that the hon. member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue tabled this private member's bill with the best of intentions. That said, I do have a number of concerns that I would like to raise.

First of all, I think the changes proposed in the bill would actually create more problems than solutions. The sponsor of the bill claims it would help volunteer fire departments with recruitment and retention in smaller-sized communities. However, according to a survey conducted by the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs, the biggest challenge that fire departments face is a lack of employment rather than unsupportive employers.

Having a strong rural Canada and natural resource development is what we spent all day talking about. We talked about it impeding the ability for our rural and remote communities to enjoy the resources that would provide them with employment opportunities and the prosperity they deserve and want.

It is also important to note that in the Red Tape Reduction Commission it was clear that in imposing additional regulations on employers, such as this bill would do, it would not only be counterproductive, but harmful. The costs of red tape and regulations have gone into the billions of dollars. It is a very onerous burden on our communities. Of course, that is why we are working to reduce the regulatory burden on Canadian businesses and provide them with the required flexibility to grow, create jobs and contribute to our recovering economy.

Many may recall, in 2008, that we amended the Canada Labour Code to provide an unpaid leave for members of the reserve force. Some people might ask why we are not willing to do the same for the volunteer firefighter. However, I think there is an important distinction.

Reservists are deployed for a longer but determined period of time, which makes a formal approach to managing their absences from work the best policy decision. Having the time to recruit, train and allow reservists to go for six months, a year, or whatever time of deployment, is a lot different from saying that someone must be allowed to walk out the door immediately, which is what is needed for our emergency response.

Volunteer firefighters are frequently absent from work for short, but indeterminate periods of time. As such, the goodwill agreement between the volunteer firefighters and their employers is best suited to meet the needs.

I noted a question earlier about the relationship with municipalities. As a former mayor, we had a volunteer firefighter department. There was generosity by the employers in terms of letting their employees go on these responses because they knew it could be them or a family member. The communities and the employers were incredibly generous, especially when it did not unduly disrupt what was happening.

In some ways, Bill C-504 is a proposed legislative fix to a non-existent problem. Across Canada, only two provinces have adopted this legislation, and they are Quebec and Nova Scotia. Collective agreements are telling us the same story. When reviewing a sample of more than 3,000 collective agreements, only two contained provisions related to volunteer firefighter duties.

Therefore, in the absence of a problem, the right approach to this is the status quo. We can trust employers and employees to come to an agreement which satisfies both the call of duty and local business needs.

Furthermore, there are many questions that have been left unanswered with this proposed legislation. It fails to clearly define certain concepts and conditions. For example, when would an employer have good cause to prevent an employee from leaving work? It is very unclear. Does that mean that with good cause, an employer could dismiss, suspend, lay off, demote, or discipline an employee for serving as a volunteer firefighter?

Also, when and how would an employee be required to inform the employer of his or her obligations as a volunteer firefighter?

Bill C-504 also fails to specify for which volunteer tasks an employee could leave work. There are a large number of responsibilities for volunteer firefighters.

My son is currently a volunteer firefighter, but they know he has to work it around his work schedule. He is a nurse in the intensive care unit and would have to travel 30 minutes to respond, so it would be very impractical in that case to have legislation that would compel his employer to allow him to go.

We know that there are a variety of tasks. Our volunteer firefighters have emergency responses, of course, but there is training, equipment and fire hall maintenance, fire prevention and education, inspections, fundraising, administration, and so on. There are many tasks, and we have not really clarified what they could respond to.

In conclusion, Bill C-504 is far too ambiguous. For these reasons, the government simply cannot support it.

I ask members to please not get me wrong. We recognize the very crucial role that our volunteer firefighters play in our communities and have taken action through such things as the provision of the volunteer firefighter tax credit. As the House may remember, that provision is available for firefighters who provide at least 200 hours of eligible service per calendar year at one or more fire departments. I am very proud to say that it benefited more than 30,000 firefighters in 2011.

The chiefs, firefighters, and volunteer firefighters in my communities have been asking for this volunteer firefighter tax credit for many years, but I have never had one of them approach me with the suggestion that there was any issue with their ability to come and go from work, especially in terms of the goodwill relationship.

In short, we have taken measurable action to support the men and women who bravely serve as our volunteer firefighters. They absolutely deserve our respect. They respond to emergency calls. They rescue people in distress and often save lives. Bill C-504 would not provide genuine protection, but would create confusion and inequity while putting an unnecessary burden on businesses across Canada.

We are certainly committed to ensuring that workplaces remain safe and productive and contribute to a prosperous Canadian economy. We will continue to work towards this commitment, but for all the reasons I mentioned earlier, our Conservative government cannot support this legislation.

Again, I do appreciate the member's reasons for bringing this bill forward. Her intentions were very honourable, but the best thing to say in summary is that this is a legislative solution in search of a non-existent problem.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to get up and speak to this particular bill on behalf of the party. I want to commend the member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue for bringing this forward for debate. She has brought it forward as a well-intentioned bill; but certainly, as my colleague from Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo has indicated, there are aspects of this bill that remain unaddressed or vague or somewhat strange in the number of ways it could be applied. I am just not certain as to where the problem was that precipitated the bill's coming forward, so I was surprised to see it coming from a member who represents a rural constituency.

I have 50 volunteer fire departments in my riding. They go from Dominion to Donkin to Guysborough, Cheticamp and Port Hawkesbury. Every community has a volunteer fire department. We all stand and offer respect and gratitude to those who offer themselves up to help look over their family and friends in those rural communities. I have done a fair amount of work with the volunteer firefighters, not just in my riding, but nationally I was able to bring a private member's bill forward in the 37th Parliament. The essence of it was a tax deduction for those who put in 200 hours. The Conservatives took that and put it in a bigger omnibus bill. It was probably a rose among many thorns, so we were not able to support it at that time, but had it been broken free I know that my colleagues in my party would have supported it.

At that time, I was able to speak with a great number of volunteer fire department chiefs from across the country and a great number of volunteer firefighters. Never over the course of those discussions did this ever come out as an issue. Certainly in my consultations with the fire chiefs, they have been consistent year after year. Brent Denny from Cape Breton regional fire services has been a strong advocate for the fire chiefs. He is on the national executive and continues to do great work for that organization and for firefighters. They have been consistent year after year in identifying their key concerns, asking for government to designate 10 MHz of spectrum on the public safety broadband, which would provide volunteer fire services and first responders with state-of-the-art communications. This is something they have been advocating for over the last number of years. Improvement to fire services on first nations communities is another issue. They have banded together and are trying to rally for the creation of an independent national fire marshal for first nations communities.

We are very much aware of those initiatives, but this particular one was never heard coming from those whom it would most impact. Since receiving the private member's bill, I have communicated with those people and they still do not see it as being something that is, pardon the pun, a burning issue.

With regard to my party, I want to recognize the work by the member for Wascana who succeeded in passing Motion No. 388. This motion introduces a one-time $300,000 benefit for firefighters who were killed or disabled in the line of duty. It also provides firefighters with priority access to vaccines and medications, very similar to what front-line health care workers have to their avail now.

It calls for the inclusion of firefighter safety in the National Building Code. Again, that motion that was presented by the member for Wascana reflected issues and concerns that have been brought forward by firefighters and representatives over the years.

The other thing that concerns me, and I would think it should concern the members of the NDP as well, is that what we are doing is we are asking the government to change the Canada Labour Code. We know the Canada Labour Code is the bedrock, the foundation, for the relationship between employers and employees. We know it is fundamental.

We have seen the government put forward legislation in this chamber that has been an outright offence to that relationship. We saw the changes that it wanted to undertake in moving from a card check system to a system with a secret preferred ballot. That is a complete change to the relationship between employer and employee.

We have heard from unions that said if the government were to change the Canada Labour Code, it should be done through consultation and consensus. It should not be one-offing. The Sims report that was tabled in the late 1990s said we should not be political with this. The government of the day should not be involved in this. The relationship between employer and employee should be one that is built through consultation and consensus.

If we are going to attack the government for their wrong-minded approach on those changes to the labour code, then I think there has been a certain degree of consistency on the part of the opposition.

I do not know enough about the bill, and I was hoping to learn more through this debate this evening. I have not seen anything in the debate to make me say, “Oh, I get it now. I see where the problem was.” I would hope that over the course of this debate the member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue can bring forward some actual fact, some research, some position papers or voluntary positions put forward by those most impacted. Maybe she could give us some cases where hardship has been met by volunteer firefighters.

In the time that we have had to look at this issue, we just have not seen that. If that comes out over the course of the debate, then we will certainly take that into consideration. Making a change to the Canada Labour Code is something we should not take lightly as legislators.

I think my time is winding down. Each of us in rural communities, whether you are a paid firefighter or a volunteer first responder, know that probably the volunteer firefighters have it even tougher because they are expected to be trained. They have a full-time day job but are expected to be trained just as well as full-time firefighters. They are expected to deal with the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual impacts of being a first responder, of rushing into that house while everyone else is running out, showing up at the scene of a head-on collision on a highway, using the jaws of life or scraping an 18-year-old kid off the dash of a car. When those volunteer first responders do that type of thing, they then have to go back to the hall, change their gear and go back to work.

We believe what they do is important, what they do is noble. We appreciate their efforts. If we believe that in some way this helps those firefighters, then we will support the bill.

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising today to voice my support for Bill C-504, and to thank my colleague from Abitibi—Témiscamingue for bringing forward such a practical and important bill.

I can only express profound disappointment at the twisted arguments, I have no other word for it, that have come forward from both the Conservatives and Liberals. On the one hand, the bill is criticized by the Conservatives for intervening in this relationship that we should just trust, but then the criticism goes on to say it is not prescriptive enough in its terms. They are ignoring that the very virtue of the bill is the fact that it touches on these things so lightly and leaves to the employer and the volunteer firefighter the opportunity to work out and inform the terms of good cause, et cetera, among themselves. Then we have the Liberals who come in and somehow draw this comparison between the desecrations visited on the Canada Labour Code by that government and the offences they caused to working people with this bill. It is absolutely beyond me how the member from the Liberal Party even dares make such a comparison.

Let me say that this bill puts forward for our consideration, and hopefully ultimately supports, a very concrete and realistic proposal, at no cost to government or employers, to keep our communities safer. The bill proposes to amend the Canada Labour Code to prohibit reprisals against volunteer or, in the terminology of the province of Quebec, part-time firefighters, who must either leave work or fail to appear at work to act in their capacity as firefighters.

Coming from the riding I come from, which is in the big city of Toronto, I have to put a bit of an urban twist on this one. In Toronto, we have a paid professional firefighting force. However, the implicit assumption I am making is that volunteers are volunteers and firefighters are firefighters, wherever they are found. There is implicit in this bill a clear statement about the critical importance of professional firefighters, whether volunteer or paid, to our own safety, the safety of our families and the safety of our communities.

I am happy to say that I live in a community that recognizes the important place of firefighters in our community and the risks they take, and are always prepared to take, for the safety of others.

Thanks in large part to Bob Murdoch and Gene Domagala, two long-standing, unfaltering and irrepressible pillars of the Beach community in my riding, and to the Centre 55 Community Centre, every year our community commemorates the tragic events of September 11, 2001. Present, and explicitly honoured at the commemoration every year, are firefighters, because 341 of the nearly 3,000 people who died on that day were firefighters. These were men and women who were not caught up in those tragic events on that day, but men and women who, as a matter of duty and incredible bravery, walked into an inferno for the sole purpose of saving others. The firefighters who perished on that day were members of the fire department of New York. However, those deaths and the bravery exhibited that day stand as a representation of all firefighters, in all places, every day. If members care to look, they would find on the website of the Canadian Fallen Firefighters Foundation, a list of nearly 1,200 names, all fallen firefighters, all fallen in the discharge of their duty, and all Canadian.

It is an inherently dangerous job. I know it through 9/11 and the events of that day. I know it through the list of fallen firefighters. I say in all due modesty, and much is due, that l know this through my very brief experience not so long ago at the fire academy, in Toronto, on Eastern Avenue. Every year, the Toronto fire department and the Toronto firefighters' association invite Toronto's elected officials to participate in some firefighter training and take some time to walk in the boots of a firefighter.

I had the opportunity to participate, and, specifically, to enter a building with a mock fire and a burning bed and attempt the rescue of occupants in the house.

I want to thank the Toronto fire department and the Toronto firefighters' association for that experience. It confirmed for me that the job is dangerous. It is both physically and psychologically challenging. It is, in a word, scary. I suppose the firefighters who work together develop a means of communicating and working together as a team, but I was surprised, and indeed shocked, by how incredibly difficult it is in the circumstances of smoke, fire, and darkness to communicate with others.

The foregoing is to suggest that there is critically important and dangerous work firefighters, paid professionals or volunteers, do.

On the volunteer side of the equation, we know that the provision of volunteer firefighting services is built into the emergency response plans of some very large and economically significant corporations: Enbridge, Canadian National Railway, Canadian Pacific Railway, and TransCanada. These companies represent a large and important part of the infrastructure of our economy.

Sometimes, regrettably, tragically, this is not just about plans but is about what might transpire. It is about actual catastrophes. Over the past year, volunteer firefighters have been there to assist in two Canadian catastrophes that caught all our attention, no matter where we live in this country, catastrophes that will never be forgotten.

When fireballs and explosions from a train derailment rocked Lac Mégantic this past summer, killing almost 50 people and razing the small town, it was volunteer firefighters who were first called to action, and there they stayed, on the front lines of recovery efforts in that town, for weeks.

Of course, it is not just in the event of fire that we find volunteer firefighters. They are there to respond to natural disasters, as was the case this past summer with the floods in Alberta. With the assistance of corporate partners, volunteer firefighters provided portable charging machines and batteries and distributed much-needed funding to flood victims, among the many other important tasks that were required to restore normalcy in flood affected areas.

It is in this context of the stuff firefighters are made of, their courage and their dedication to our safety, and the critical work they do in times of disaster, that I want to return to this bill and its modest but critically important proposal.

It would give volunteer part-time firefighters who work for a company under federal jurisdiction the right to be absent from work if they are responding to a fire call and if the employer has been informed of this obligation ahead of time. It would prohibit reprisals against volunteer part-time firefighters who, to act in that capacity, must be absent from their workplaces, either by leaving work suddenly or by failing to appear at work. Also, it would prevent employers from refusing to hire people because they are volunteer or part-time firefighters.

In all of this, the legitimate concerns of employers of volunteer firefighters have been taken into consideration by my colleague in the drafting of this bill. The amendments to the Canada Labour Code would not allow for the departure of a volunteer firefighter if the result was endangerment of his or her co-workers.

However, at the beginning and end of the day, the fact remains that in rural and remote areas of this country and in small towns, Canadians depend on volunteer firefighters to protect, in part, their safety. Across this country, there are over 100,000 volunteer firefighters. That means that 85% of all firefighters in this country are protecting 80% of our communities.

Here in the House of Commons we should be doing what we need to do to ensure that Canadians are safe. That is, in part, at least, our responsibility. My colleague from Abitibi—Témiscamingue has made our job a bit easier today by putting forward this bill. I will be supporting it, and I encourage all members of this House to do the same.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Employment and Social Development]

Mr. Speaker, it is great to be here tonight to talk about our volunteer firefighters across this country and this current legislation before us.

Like the previous Liberal speaker, my good friend from Cape Breton—Canso, I am from a very large rural riding. We have over 33 fire departments, 30 of which are staffed solely by volunteers. There are over 650 volunteer firefighters in my riding.

I know many of them. We have worked with them. We have worked very hard to push the volunteer firefighters tax credit, which gave those volunteer firefighters a few dollars off their taxes so that they could better represent their communities as volunteers and get the training and put in the hours they need to protect those communities. That was a great initiative by this government. I was pleased to support the volunteer firefighters tax credit with the rest of my colleagues on this side of the House. In 2011, over 37,000 volunteer firefighters engaged in the volunteer firefighters tax credit.

The basis of that tax credit was the fact that each volunteer spends about $3,000 if they put in 200 hours a year. The rationale behind that tax credit was that we really should not benefit as a federal government from the taxes paid by people doing such a tremendous volunteer service to their community.

As a result, we instituted a $3,000 tax credit. It put about $450 into the pocket of each and every volunteer firefighter who served his or her community for 200 hours a year. That was a great initiative. I want to give credit to the Minister of Finance, the greatest finance minister in the G7, for doing that, and credit to the Prime Minister for supporting our caucus in pushing that piece of legislation through.

In my own family we have a great legacy of service as volunteer firefighters. My grandfather served as a volunteer firefighter for over 40 years, from 1925 to 1965. When he came back from World War I, he immediately joined the fire department. He had several Dalmatian dogs throughout his life. I grew up with those dogs. Many times he would take me to the local fire department, so I spent a lot of hours of my youth in the fire department, not only sliding down the pole but learning a lot of things that my mother probably did not want me to learn, because as we know, those volunteer fire departments are made up of a lot of young fellows, and they tend to sometimes get out of hand and have a lot of fun and build camaraderie that is very valuable in any volunteer organization.

It is that camaraderie that we have to support, because these people are donating their time. They are away from their families and they are ready to go out at a moment's call to protect their community. As part of a volunteer fire department with people like my grandfather, they know what a valuable contribution they are making, and it is a contribution that communities value.

With regard to this legislation, the question is this: what problem is this legislation actually trying to solve? The bill proposes to amend the Canada Labour Code in order to provide employment protection for volunteer firefighters in a federally regulated workplace. It would only affect about 4.9% of volunteer firefighters, or 4,200 volunteer firefighters across the country.

The bill proposes to offer volunteer firefighters protection from employer reprisals, based on the premise that a lack of protection when it comes to volunteer absences is discouraging people from volunteering as firefighters.

In my riding and in many communities, that is absolutely not the case. Employers and other people in the communities support the volunteer fire department, bar none. Small businesses and medium-sized businesses want volunteer firefighters working in their establishments because they are community leaders. They actually bring people into those businesses, because people know that the business supports valuable volunteer hours that are being dedicated from the volunteer firefighters who work in their businesses. In fact, volunteer firefighters are probably some of the employees most sought after by small and medium-sized businesses in my riding and in many other ridings across the country.

Over the past 18 years, the labour program has not received any complaints of a reprisal related to volunteer firefighter duties, not one complaint. Out of 3,000 collective agreements, only two include provisions on volunteer firefighter duties. According to these numbers, it is fair to claim that this is not a significant issue to volunteer firefighters themselves.

Lastly, during a recent review of part III of the Canada Labour Code, the issue of volunteer firefighter protection was not raised once by stakeholders. The lack of complaints on this issue suggests there is no real issue to be addressed. For those reasons, we will not be supporting the bill, but that does not mean we do not appreciate and support those who generously and courageously volunteer their time to keep our communities safe.

Our government recognizes that volunteer firefighters play an invaluable role. To put that in perspective, in 2012 there were over 3,000 volunteer fire departments in Canada, the majority of which served small and medium-sized communities. For many of these communities, the fire department, the only emergency service available, is provided by volunteers. It goes without saying that these courageous volunteers are deserving of the federal government's support and that is why we introduced the volunteer firefighter tax credit.

The second issue brought up by the bill is the recruitment and retention of volunteer firefighters. This remains a challenge, particularly for small communities. On the east coast, where I live, a lot of younger people have moved to the cities because of employment troubles in some areas on the east coast, which we are addressing through the job grant, the shipbuilding contract, the west-east pipeline and the Muskrat Falls project. Our government is standing behind the east coast when it comes to jobs.

Recruitment is still a challenge, but that is being addressed within the communities and departments themselves. Based on a survey, less than 20% of respondents said that a lack of employer support was the problem with recruitment. That is a small percentage. If the lack of employer support is not a significant factor in recruiting volunteers, then why would we pass the legislation? If anything, it would only create cumbersome regulations and red tape, which may actually throw a wrench into a program that is already working.

From my own experience as a school principal in a small community with a robust volunteer firefighter department, I actually had a volunteer firefighter serve on the staff of the school where I served as principal. He was a physical education teacher named Brad Smith. We had an agreement that if a fire took place during school hours when he was teaching a class, a staff member would immediately cover his class while he hustled out the door to go fight the fire and save the community. Many times he went to fight a fire that was taking place at the home of one of the students in the school.

That is the type of arrangement and flexibility that exists among employers, staff, volunteer firefighters and the places they work. It is a system that works because communities support this initiative. They know how valuable it is. If we start messing around with a system that works and throw a bunch of regulations and bureaucratic red tape into this, we are going to disrupt a system that is currently very effective for volunteer firefighters and employers across the country.

Some people say they are like reservists and reservists need protection from employer reprisals. We know that. For those in the military who have to serve on weekends, during the week or are required to go away when our country calls them, there is protection for them. I totally agree that protection is absolutely necessary. The difference between reservists and volunteer firefighters is that, although reservists get pulled away and need protection, we can plan for that because it is on a defined basis. It is known when they are going to be gone, how long they are going to be gone, and employers can plan around that.

Volunteer firefighters are gone for indeterminate amounts of time. We do not know if they are going to be gone for four hours or 20 minutes, depending on the call. We do not know if they are going to be gone for two or three days if it is a large fire. That flexibility has to be in the system and in the negotiations between volunteer firefighters and their employers or supervisors, and that is what currently exists. It is because of this uncertainty that we need to keep the system the way it is. It is a system that works and deals with the flexibility needed to support firefighters.

This predictability makes the formal approach to managing absences from work more acceptable. We can deal with it because employers know they might be gone at a moment's call, but we have a system in place to deal with it when it happens. We have a system in place because we have negotiated that beforehand and that is the way it works across the country.

All kinds of volunteers across this country offer their time and energy to help others in need. I believe volunteers are the backbone of their communities. They are certainly a force of good in small towns. In my opinion, volunteer firefighters are at the top of the heap when it comes to volunteers. They are our most necessary volunteers. They are the ones we need because they protect our property and our lives, and they have to risk their own lives to do it.

Canadians can count on our government to always support volunteer firefighters and to put regulations in place that help them and solve problems that actually exist. We stand behind volunteer firefighters, but this is not legislation we can support.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

The time provided for the consideration of private members' business has now expired, and the order is dropped to the bottom of the order of precedence on the order paper.

A motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, the House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 10 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 6:17 p.m.)