I am now prepared to rule on the point of order raised earlier today by the hon. member for Edmonton West regarding the form of the appropriation bill to be considered later today.
I thank the hon. member for having raised this point, as well as the hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader, the hon. chief opposition whip, and the hon. member for Elmwood—Transcona for their interventions.
The hon. member for Edmonton West argued that certain provisions of the supply bill are not properly aligned with the content of the main estimates transmitted to the House by Her Excellency on April 16, 2018. More specifically, he was concerned that the wording of vote 40 under Treasury Board Secretariat, the budget implementation vote, contains new elements not originally found in the main estimates. He felt that this was inappropriate, as this language had not been considered by the standing committee and will not be concurred in by the House when it votes on the estimates later today. By modifying the language found in the bill, he felt the government was inventing new authority and purposes other than what had been communicated to the House by Her Excellency when the Estimates were presented.
The hon. parliamentary secretary noted that the Standing Orders require that the appropriation bill be based on the estimates. He noted that this language is similar to that found in Standing Order 83(4) regarding bills based on ways and means motions. In his mind, there was no doubt that the appropriation bill was based on the main estimates.
The hon. member for Elmwood—Transcona argued that each item in the main estimates contains an amount and a destination, as described in the vote wording. Since the vote wording lays out the purpose of the spending and the conditions governing the spending, he argued that the government could only change it through the supplementary estimates or by new legislation. He did not feel the government had the prerogative to change the form of its request, especially after it had already been reviewed and approved by committee.
Standing Order 81(21) provides as follows:
The adoption of any motion to concur in any estimate or estimates shall be an Order of the House to bring in a bill or bills based thereon.
This provision is particularly significant given the way the House considers supply. The main estimates lay out the government’s spending plans. They are first tabled and then studied by committees over a period of several weeks. They contain an annex with the proposed items to be included in the schedule to the appropriation act. The supply bill is, by rule, considered at all stages in a single sitting, generally without debate or possibility of amendment. Such a process only makes sense if the supply bill is closely aligned with the main estimates. Indeed, the practice of distributing the supply bill at the beginning of the final allotted day, rather than when the bill is read a first time, developed, in part, because it is based on the main estimates. Similarly, the practice of allowing a member of the official opposition to ask, during the committee of the whole proceedings, if the bill is in the usual form, is yet another opportunity to reassure the House that there are no unexpected surprises in the bill
The essential question, then, is what is meant by the words “based thereon”. As the parliamentary secretary mentioned, similar phrasing is used in Standing Order 83(4) regarding bills based on ways and means motions. While the chief opposition whip argued that this is not an appropriate comparison, I note that in both cases a motion must first be concurred in before a bill based thereon can be introduced. In one case, it is a motion to concur in the estimates, while in the other, it is concurrence in the ways and means motion.
Speaker Jerome, in a ruling interpreting what is now Standing Order 83(4), said at pages 224 and 225 of the Journals of December 18, 1974:
It must be assumed that if it was intended that the bills be required to be identical to the motion, the rule would say so.
He added:
Obviously, the most desirable practice is for the bill to adhere strictly to the provisions of the motion, and departures, if any, ought to be the subject of the strictest interpretation.