Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from the Bloc Québécois for bringing this bill forward. I think it will give us an opportunity to talk about the treaty process here in Canada and in the House of Commons.
The first multilateral treaty negotiated and signed by Canada was the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. The first bilateral treaty negotiated and signed by Canada was the Halibut Treaty between Canada and the United States in 1923. Before that, the United Kingdom negotiated, signed and ratified treaties on behalf of all of the countries in the empire. Full treaty authority was not fully delegated to Canada until 1947, with the issuance of the Letters Patent, 1947. As I think my colleague mentioned, there are some 4,400 treaties that Canada has entered into or has been bound by over the years.
An important starting point for this particular private member's bill is discussing the nomenclature of a treaty. Under the Vienna convention that codified international practice in 1969, Canada defines a treaty as “a single instrument” or “two or more related instruments” and indicates that treaties can come in various forms of description. They can be called treaties, conventions, agreements, protocols or some similar word. They can be a simple exchange of diplomatic notes or a simple exchange of diplomatic letters. All of these are incorporated into what Canada considers to be a treaty.
What is not a treaty is an arrangement or a memorandum of understanding. Those two documents are not considered by Canada to be treaties, although other states consider them to be treaties.
It is important to start with that description of what we in Canada call a treaty before we go on to a discussion of the bill.
When I look at Bill C-228, I note that it further defines a treaty as an amendment to a treaty. Treaties are not simply the original bilateral, multilateral or plurilateral agreement; any amendment to such an agreement is also considered a treaty in the definition provided by the bill.
The bill then goes on to define what a major treaty is. When I read the bill, a major treaty seems to encompass pretty much all treaties. They are almost one and the same. A major treaty is defined as any treaty that requires for its implementation “the enactment of an Act of Parliament”, “the conferment of new powers on His Majesty in Right of Canada”, or “the imposition of a tax by Parliament”; “imposes a significant direct or conditional financial obligation on Canada”; “concerns the transfer of part of Canada’s territory”; “requires Canada to impose...economic or military sanctions on a state”; or “concerns the territorial jurisdiction of Canada”. In the final two descriptions, a major treaty is any treaty that “concerns international trade or investment” or “concerns Canada’s participation in international institutions”.
When we look at what a major treaty is as defined in the bill, it pretty much encompasses all treaties. A very broad set of treaties would be defined and captured by this bill.
What the bill would do can be summarized by three elements. The first is it would codify existing policy and practice by the Government of Canada and the practice here in the House of Commons, which my hon. colleague across the aisle called the Ponsonby convention.
As an aside, I might mention that one of the primary schools I went to when I was a kid was Ponsonby Public School, which is just down the road from where I grew up. It was probably named after the person who authored the convention, but it is the Ponsonby rule that had been in place in the United Kingdom since 1924. That rule in the United Kingdom has been codified into law by the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010.
What we currently do here in practice in the House, what the government currently does in policy, which was enacted by the Harper government in 2008, is being proposed to be codified by the bill that is before us, and I think that is an interesting idea. It is something the U.K. has done, but in practice I do not think it would make any real change to the way we consider treaties here in the House.
The second and third elements of the private member's bill would change significantly how we deal with treaties. The second element is that “the Minister must obtain the advice of the House of Commons regarding the treaty before ratifying it.” In other words, the minister needs to ensure that a debate and a vote take place in the House as a whole for each treaty laid before the House. The third element of the bill is that all major treaties would be reviewed by a committee of the House and that the committee would have to report back to the House.
I think the second and third elements of the bill would be a problem, and I want to explain why. As my hon. colleague mentioned, there are some 4,400 treaties that Canada is party to. Let us just assume that they have been negotiated over about 100 years; that means about 44 treaties a year. That would be a lot of treaties for the House to debate and to vote on each and every time. It would be a lot of work for a committee to review and report back to the House each and every time.
Seeing that the House typically sits only 26 or 27 weeks a year, we would be looking at having a day of debate and a vote in the House pretty much three days out of every two weeks the House is sitting, and the committees of the House would also be tasked three times every 10 sitting days with reviewing and reporting back on a treaty.
I looked at the statistics for the last five Parliaments, beginning with the 41st Parliament, about the number of treaties that have been laid before the House. In the 41st Parliament, which lasted about four years, there were 142 treaties that were laid in front of the House, which is roughly 110 a year. In the 42nd Parliament, which sat for four years, there were 91 treaties that were laid before the House, which is a rate of roughly 22 treaties each sitting year.
In the 43rd Parliament, which was the pandemic Parliament, when arguably, even though it lasted for a year and a half, we really sat for only about a year, 32 treaties were negotiated during the roughly 20 to 30 weeks the House sat. In the 44th Parliament, over three years, 62 treaties were laid in front of the House. Just in the first eight weeks of the current Parliament, I counted ministers' laying before the House 17 treaties, at a rate of roughly more than two a week.
When I look at what the bill proposes, I think it would be an undue burden on the House and its committees. I think that three treaties every 10 sitting days being laid before the House, triggering a debate with a commensurate vote, and three treaties every 10 calendar days being sent to committee for review and report would put a big burden on the House and distract us from the other critical work we need to do in this place.
I will finish by saying that I think this is a well-intentioned bill that has allowed us to shine a light on the Ponsonby Rule, which has been in place here in the chamber since the Harper government issued the policy through a ministerial statement in 2008. Some of the aspects of the bill are interesting, such as the codification of that rule into law, but I think the way the bill has been worded in its second and third elements, related to a review and vote in the House and its committees, would put an undue burden on the House.