Mr. Speaker, this point of order follows the tabling in the House yesterday of two documents by one of the co-chairmen of the Special Joint Committee reviewing Canada's foreign policy, the hon. member for Ottawa-Vanier.
The first document includes the report of the committee and is signed by the two co-chairmen. The second document includes the dissenting opinions and the appendices to the report. For several reasons, we feel that to include dissenting opinions in a document separate from the report signed by the co-chairmen of the committee goes against the parliamentary rules governing the committee and this House.
First, we want to point out that Standing Order 108.(1)( a ) allows committees to report on issues submitted to them. That provision, which is on page 63 of the Standing Orders of the House of Commons, also authorizes committees, and I quote:
-to print a brief appendix to any report, after the signature of the Chairman, containing such opinions or recommendations, dissenting from the report or supplementary to it, as may be proposed by committee members.
The decision to annex such a statement must be made by way of a motion concurred in by committee members. As confirmed in the minutes of the committee included in the second document tabled yesterday, such a motion was agreed to at the hearing which took place on the evening of November 2, 1994.
The text of the motion, which is found on page 102 of the second document, reads as follows: "On motion of Bill Graham, it was agreed,- That the Bloc Quebecois, the Reform Party and other members of the Committee, be authorized to append to the report their dissenting or supplementary opinions or recommendations, such opinions or recommendations shall be in the discretion of the dissenting members themselves relevant and proportionate to the length of the report".
Mr. Speaker, we respectfully submit that the documents tabled yesterday do not comply with the terms of Standing Order 108(1)( a ), since the dissenting opinions are not presented after the signatures of the joint chairs, which are found at the end of the report in the first document. On the contrary, this statement is in the second document, separate from the first, which contains the report of the committee signed by the joint chairs.
The dissenting opinions are in no case appended to the report as required by Standing Order 108(1)( a ) and the motion adopted by the committee on November 2, 1994. Some might be inclined to say that the dissenting opinions follow the joint chairs' signatures in the second document, which is part of the committee's report.
Mr. Speaker, we cannot support such a claim because we think that such a procedure is contrary to the spirit, if not the letter, of Standing Order 108(1)( a ). Indeed, what is the point of appending the dissenting opinions of certain members to the committee report, if not to let readers of the report judge the validity of the opinions and recommendations that it contains by comparing them with those of the dissenting members?
The most basic logic requires that these dissenting opinions follow in the same document. At no time should someone be able to refer to this report without immediately having the recommendations of the minority report included therein. That is why Standing Order 108(1)( a ) requires appending the dissenting opinions to the report, following the signature of the two joint chairs; otherwise such a statement is quite useless.
Economic or practical reasons cannot be invoked to justify tabling two separate documents in the House, since this was not founded on a committee decision. The committee must adopt a motion consistent with parliamentary rules for the committee
report and the statement of dissident opinions to be divided into two documents.
According to citation 552 in Beauchesne, every matter is determined in the House of Commons upon a question put by the Speaker on a proposition submitted by a member. Since Standing Order 116 provides that a committee must obey House procedural rules, the committee should, in accordance with parliamentary rules, adopt a motion to publish the dissident report as a separate document, if it decides to do so for economic or practical reasons.
The motion adopted by the committee on November 2, 1994, which authorizes Bloc members on the committee to append their dissident opinions to the report, does not provide in any way for the report to be split into two documents. In fact, the committee minutes reproduced in the second document do not reflect such a decision.
Therefore, it cannot be argued that the committee had full discretion to include dissident opinions in a second document. Again, such a decision should have been the subject of a motion duly adopted by the committee, but the minutes do not contain such a motion.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, for these reasons, we respectfully submit to you that tabling the report and the statement of dissident opinions in two separate documents, as was done yesterday, goes against the rules of parliamentary procedure governing the House of Commons and the committee.
Parliamentary jurisprudence clearly establishes that the Chair is free to rule on a report's admissibility at any time after the report is tabled. Indeed, citation 893 in Beauchesne, on page 244, says this: "A committee report may be ruled out of order even though it has been received by the House, and a motion to concur therein cannot then be entertained".
On January 28, 1991, the Chair ruled, on page 2824 of Hansard , that part of a report previously tabled in the House was inadmissible and even null and void. Therefore, we urge you, Mr. Speaker, to exercise the powers invested in you and rule out of order the reports tabled yesterday in the House by one of the committee joint chairmen, to order that the report of the Special Joint Committee Reviewing Canada's Foreign Policy be reprinted so that the dissident opinions appear after the joint chairmen's signatures within a single document, in accordance with the parliamentary rules governing the House and the committee, and finally to order that the reprinted report be tabled as soon as possible.