Mr. Speaker, I am rising to provide further supplementary submissions to those I made earlier, as I indicated I would, on the point of order raised this afternoon by the hon. House leader for the official opposition.
I have had a chance to consult the cases that were cited in footnote 99 associated with the passage from which the hon. member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley quoted on page 728 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice, second edition.
In one of those cases, on May 16, 1978, at page 5461 of the Debates, Mr. Speaker Jerome directed that a bill be withdrawn after introduction because, “...while the document in respect to the motion was prepared, the bill itself had not been finalized and therefore is not ready for introduction”.
Second, in another case on December 15, 1980, at page 5746 of the Debates, Madam Speaker Sauvé directed that a bill be withdrawn on the same basis. Indeed, the bill in that case had not yet even been drafted.
These are in very stark contrast to the situation at hand.
Unlike those cases, we do have a bill. We have been hearing about it in the House all week long. The hon. House leader of the official opposition even quoted, from the summary of the bill, an explanatory text accompanying the clauses of the bill. Of course, we have had many people in the debates today and yesterday referring to parts of the bill.
In my earlier submissions, I spoke to the relationship between an explanatory note and a bill. Members will recall that the House leader was saying the difficulty was with the explanatory note, that there was a difference in the translation between the French and the English, and therefore the bill was not in its proper form.
I will add to my earlier citation by quoting from the treatment O'Brien and Bosc give to bill summaries at page 733.
The purpose of the summary is to contribute to a better understanding of the contents of the bill, of which it is not a part. For this reason, it appears separately at the beginning of the bill.
Once again, there is another citation that demonstrates that the summary, which is what the member was referring to, is not part of the bill. Even if there were an error in the summary that was grievous, that is not a reason to say the bill is not in its proper form. It is not part of the bill.
I do have a few other precedents that I would like to offer in relation to these supplementary texts of an explanatory nature, which get appended to bills.
I will start with a ruling of June 14, 1938, at page 450 of the Journals from Mr. Speaker Casgrain. He said:
The explanatory notes do not form part of the bill proper and they do not have to be approved by the House. They are only given as reasons for the text and to facilitate discussion.
That was a long time ago; 75 years ago or more.
Next, I have Mr. Speaker Beaudoin's ruling, which is much more recent, May 17, 1956, an interesting time, at page 568 of the Journals.
...explanatory notes are not part of the bill nor are the marginal notes....The bill consists of the various clauses that are there. In order to judge whether a bill is blank or in an imperfect shape, it had to have blanks when it was introduced and given first reading.
Later, he said in relation to what is now Standing Order 68(3): “No bill may be introduced either in blank or in imperfect shape”.
He continues:
Therefore at that moment the hon. Member cannot raise the point of order because he does not have a copy of the bill. The bill has not been printed. It is my duty, however, to satisfy myself. He was referring to his role as Speaker.
Mr. Speaker Beaudoin's ruling was sustained at the time upon appeal by a vote of 152 to 57.
On March 29, 1972, at page 1268 of the Debates, Mr. Speaker Lamoureux also confirmed the courtesy nature of the supplementary content that gets printed with bills.
As the hon. member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley pointed out, there was a translation error in the text from which he quoted. That text was prepared by the Department of Justice and bore on its cover the following note: “Advance copy to be formatted and reprinted by Parliament”.
The proviso was added to the courtesy copies of the government bills that were provided to MPs following the point of order by the hon. member for Kings—Hants, which was also cited today, and I think some of us remember that debate.
The official version of Bill C-23 of which the House is seized was ordered by the House on Tuesday to be printed. That motion is recorded at page 493 of the Journals. That copy of the bill, the official copy printed by order of the House and as published under the purview of our law clerk, can be viewed on the Internet, and there the House can see the corrected text in the bill’s summary.
In conclusion, I will briefly recap my arguments. First, the test for the application of Standing Order 68(3) takes place prior to introduction under the authority of the Chair, not at this stage. Second, explanatory notes and summaries do not even form any part of the bill; it is simply a courtesy measure to assist hon. members in performing their jobs. Finally, the wording issue of which the NDP has complained is not even in the version of Bill C-23 before this House.
I think we can see that there is no merit to the point raised.