Mr. Speaker, I rise on a very important point of order.
On Tuesday morning, during routine proceedings, the chair of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food reported Bill C-30 back to the House with amendments. I wish to seek a ruling from the Chair as to whether an amendment to Bill C-30, adopted by the committee, is in order.
I understand that generally, the Chair does not involve itself with the business of committees, given that committees are masters of their own proceedings. However, as Speaker Milliken pointed out on February 27, 2007, at page 7386 of the Debates, ruling on a similar matter:
As the House knows, the Speaker does not intervene on matters upon which committees are competent to take decisions. However, in cases where a committee has exceeded its authority, particularly in relation to bills, the Speaker has been called upon to deal with such matters after a report has been presented to the House.
I submit that an amendment moved by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, and adopted by the committee, is out of order, because the committee has exceeded its authority.
The amendments to the committee-adopted subsection 116(4) seek to add an entirely new and different provision to the Canada Transportation Act that was clearly not envisioned in the original draft of Bill C-30, as tabled and passed by the House at second reading on Friday, March 28, 2014.
The summary of the original Bill C-30 states that:
This enactment amends the Canada Grain Act to permit the regulation of contracts relating to grain and the arbitration of disputes respecting the provisions of those contracts. It also amends the Canada Transportation Act with respect to railway transportation in order to, among other things, (a) require the Canadian National Railway Company and the Canadian Pacific Railway Company to move the minimum amount of grain specified in the Canada Transportation Act or by order of the Governor in Council; and (b) facilitate the movement of grain by rail.
Bill C-30, as originally tabled, was about moving grain. It is much needed. It is a serious problem with respect to farmers getting their grain to market. However, the amendment, tabled at committee by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Foods, and adopted by the committee, seeks an entirely new power:
Subsection 116(4) of the Canada Transportation Act is amended by adding the following after paragraph (c):
(c.1) order the company to compensate any person adversely affected for any expenses that they incurred as a result of the company's failure to fulfill its service obligations or, if the company is a party to a confidential contract with a shipper that requires the company to pay an amount of compensation for expenses incurred by the shipper as a result of the company's failure to fulfill its service obligations, order the company pay that amount to the shipper;
The Minister of Agriculture may believe that this is a favourable amendment, and it may very well be. The problem is that it exceeds the authority of the original bill and provides quite an extraordinary remedy in that it gives the regulator the power to award damages in the absence of any procedural fairness, any rule of law, or any discoveries.
In the ruling on the power of a committee to make amendments, Speaker Fraser ruled, on April 28, 1992, at page 9801 of the Debates, stating:
When a bill is referred to a standing or legislative committee of the House, that committee is only empowered to adopt, amend, or negative the clauses found in that piece of legislation and to report the bill to the House with or without amendments. The committee is restricted in its examination in a number of ways. It cannot infringe on the financial initiative of the Crown, it cannot go beyond the scope of the bill as passed at second reading, and it cannot reach back to the parent act to make further amendments not contemplated in the bill no matter how tempting this may be.
It may have been very tempting to amend the bill to provide for compensatory powers within the regulator, but it falls outside the four corners of Bill C-30 as it was adopted by the House.
Mr. Speaker, I submit to you that in this instance, the amendment to Bill C-30 is both beyond the scope of the bill and also reaches back to make changes to the Canada Transportation Act that were not contemplated by the bill. The amendment passed by the committee has the effect of giving the Canada Transportation Agency the right to award damages, a right that at this point in time has been the sole purview of the courts.
The amendment to subsection 116(4) is out of order, because it does not relate to the original subject matter of Bill C-30 as introduced and passed by the House at second reading and because it introduces new issues that were not part of Bill C-30 as originally introduced. The amendment is therefore beyond the scope of Bill C-30 and should be removed from the bill. I look forward to a ruling from the Chair.