We will resume.
The Chair would like to make a statement regarding the current supply period, ending December 10, 2024.
Since September 26, 2024, the House has been seized with privilege motions. As stated in Standing Order 48(1), “Whenever any matter of privilege arises, it shall be taken into consideration immediately.” Accordingly, any potential breach of privilege or contempt of the House must be examined without delay.
Our practices and traditions also give a privilege motion priority consideration over other orders of the day, based on the long-standing principle that for our House to carry out its work effectively and authoritatively, its rights and dignity must be upheld at all times.
House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition, explains at page 151:
A privilege motion once under debate has priority over all Orders of the Day including Government Orders and Private Members' Business. However, the debate does not interfere with Routine Proceedings, Statements by Members, Question Period, Royal Assent, deferred recorded divisions or the adjournment of the House.... Should debate on a privilege motion not be completed by the ordinary hour of daily adjournment, this item will take priority over all other Orders of the Day at the next sitting.
Members are now familiar with this principle.
The House also has an undoubted responsibility to grant supplies, which are the sole gift of the House to the Crown, as outlined in Standing Order 80(1). This is the reason estimates are tabled in the House periodically. On Monday, November 18, 2024, the President of the Treasury Board tabled the supplementary estimates (B) for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2025. The Standing Orders, notably Standing Order 81(17), prescribe a mechanism to dispose of those estimates no later than December 10.
In addition, the responsibility for the estimates must be balanced with another fundamental principle, that of allowing the opposition to present its grievances, through motions examined during supply days, before the House can adopt supplies. These days are commonly referred to as opposition days. Four more opposition days must be held during the supply period ending on December 10.
Without presupposing how or when the House will deal with its various questions of privilege, as we get closer to the end of the current supply period, the Chair wishes to encourage the House leaders to keep these various principles in mind. I am confident that they can find ways to reconcile these important responsibilities.
I thank all members for their attention.
The hon. member for La Prairie on a point of order.