Madam Speaker, earlier today, the second report of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security was tabled in the House, respecting the consideration of Bill C-12, an act respecting certain measures relating to the security of Canada's borders and the integrity of the Canadian immigration system and respecting other related security measures.
I am rising on a point of order to bring to the Speaker's attention nine amendments adopted by the committee that the chair of the committee ruled inadmissible on the grounds that these amendments violated the parent act rule.
On page 771 of the third edition of House of Commons Procedure and Practice, it states, in relation to the rules and precedents that govern the admissibility of amendments proposed in committee:
An amendment to a bill must be relevant in that it must always relate to the subject matter of the bill or to the clause thereof under consideration. In the case of a bill referred to a committee after second reading, an amendment is inadmissible if it proposes to amend a statute that is not before the committee or a section of the parent Act, unless the latter is specifically amended by a clause of the bill.
In the case of the study by the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security on Bill C-12, the following nine amendments were ruled inadmissible by the chair because they infringed on the parent act rule. In these nine circumstances, the majority of members on the committee voted to overturn the chair's ruling, and these amendments were subsequently adopted. These amendments are CPC-8, CPC-13, CPC-14, CPC-15, CPC-16 and CPC-17 to change part 6 of the bill, concerning asylum reform; CPC-30 and CPC-33, which would create two new parts of the bill concerning penalties for human trafficking and the location of the position of the chair of the Immigration and Refugee Board; and CPC-2 to change part 4 of the bill, respecting ministerial powers, duties and functions related to the Canadian Coast Guard.
I therefore submit that these nine aforementioned amendments were inadmissible at committee. Should you agree, I would humbly request that the bill be reprinted without the offending amendments for the House to consider at the report stage.