Roger Gallaway

[Points of Order, February 16th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, this is clearly not a point of order and I say that for the following reasons.

The hon. member makes the incredible assumption and jumps to the conclusion that if one is a privy councillor one is a cabinet minister. If that disqualified people from sitting on committees, there would be many members of the House who would be disqualified. In fact, there are privy councillors in other caucuses, and I refer to one member in particular of the NDP who is a member of this House and a privy councillor.

I would refer the hon. member opposite to the Hansard of the other place for February 2, 2003, and he will find contained in the record who in fact is a member of cabinet.

There are many members of the privy council. To say that somehow if one is a privy councillor, one is disqualified from sitting on a committee is preposterous and incorrect, and could never be a point of order.

[Privilege, February 16th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to provide more detail on the three points raised in the question of privilege last Thursday, February 12, by the member for New Westminster—Coquitlam—Burnaby.

First, he noted that the Standing Committee on Public Accounts was considering the sponsorship program. It is actually studying the Auditor General's report. Second, he quoted from the Auditor General's report on the sponsorship program that funds appropriated by Parliament were, in the Auditor General's view, used in an inappropriate manner. Third, he noted that this was explicitly the matter before the public accounts committee.

Both the member for New Westminster—Coquitlam—Burnaby and his colleague, the member for St. John's West, suggested that this was a question of privilege which should be sent to a committee.

It is unrealistic and nonsensical because it is already before a committee. It is not logical on the one hand to state that the public accounts committee is studying this--we all acknowledge that--and on the other hand to assert that this is a question of privilege and should be sent to a committee.

It is inappropriate to suggest that there could be a prima facie question of privilege if a matter is already before a committee. The committee is in fact studying the matter and has not completed its work.

I suggest that we allow the public accounts committee to get on with its work and not take up the time of the House with attempts to meddle in the committee's work which is already underway.

[Questions on the Order Paper, February 12th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.

[Questions on the Order Paper, February 11th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.

[Reinstatement of Government Bills, February 10th, 2004]

I can hear members making comments about that. They are objecting to that observation, that the new party opposite has assumed two opposing positions in a very short period of months.

The bill passed this House and was sent to the other place just before prorogation. Bill C-49, as it was then known, passed this place literally unopposed. There was agreement across the House and among parties, but because of certain events outside the House, they are now opposed to something that just a few months ago they were endorsing.

That is an amazing revelation which I think should be brought to light, that an amendment to an amendment is itself a contradiction in terms.

There is an amendment to the main motion of the government that was also tabled by the party opposite. There is the main motion of the government which says to let us get on with the business of the country and let us get the House of Commons back to the affairs of the country.

It may very well be that members opposite would not like some of this legislation and I can understand that. In fact, I have already observed that legislation they did like they no longer like. Therefore, there may be legislation that they do not like today that they will like in the future. I cannot rule out that possibility.

What it all means is very simple, that members of the opposition are not interested in getting on with a real debate about legislation. They want to get into a debate about the procedures of this House.

I have heard members opposite decrying the fact that this reinstatement motion is before us. Let us go back to the standing orders, the rules of the House. Again, I will say that the standing orders were not intended to be a constraint on this place. The standing orders were in fact intended to give some order to this place, to make it efficient, because we want to do business in a good and timely fashion.

The end result is that as of 30 years ago or thereabouts we have our present standing order with respect to reinstatement. Reinstatement is the recognition that after prorogation bills that were before the House can return to the House in the same form and at the same stage as they were at when the prorogation was granted by the Governor General. The reason is that some 30 years ago there was a recognition that government was becoming more complex, that the affairs of the House were becoming more important and that we would not want to lose legislation that had passed second reading and committee stage.

We all know that committees invest a lot of time and a lot of resources in the whole study of a bill and if that is lost, much is lost in terms of progress of legislation and more important, in the agenda of a government or in the agenda of the country. To let that slide away could mean a loss of perhaps years in terms of very essential and important legislation that must be dealt with.

We have heard reference tonight to Bill C-13 which is commonly called the reproductive technologies bill. We are in a situation where if I were to follow the logic and succumb to the subamendment, or the amendment to the government motion, it would be lost. It would be gone. What would happen is that, I would dare say, thousands of hours of members' time, hundreds of hours of committee time and dozens and dozens of hours of House time, would be lost. We would go back to the beginning. It may be that we would have to reinvest all that time again to get back to a point and then beyond to pass that bill. That could be many months, if not a year away.

This would mean that a very quickly evolving area of life sciences, if I could call them that, would be lost. It would all be lost. We would be living in that domain which would be unregulated. Yet we are told by members opposite that they are quite willing to allow this very vital, integral and fundamental part of science, an area of great concern to many Canadians and to scientific research and development in this country, to slip away. They are quite willing to risk living in an environment that is unregulated. They are quite willing to play the game of the subamendment.

I go back to my original premise. Let us remember that the standing orders were created to give order and efficiency to this place, but what we are seeing now is a gamesmanship around this.

Certainly for every rule there is someone out there who is going to find an exception. What we are looking at now is the exception, the exception being that there is a subamendment and an amendment to the main motion. We are not debating one motion. We are debating an endless number of amendments and subamendments.

Clearly there is an unforeseeable number of subamendments which could be brought forward. It means that this is all tied up in process and not in substance. It means that members opposite can in fact shut down the affairs of this place, shut down the affairs of government, shut down the House of Commons simply by using a device, a device that is without meaning in terms of the substance, the substantive words of what they have laid down in the subamendment and in the amendment.

What the opposition is saying is that they do not care, they are not interested and that it is of no concern to them whether the government gets up and operating. They just want to continue to bring forward amendments and subamendments, and there are an infinite and indeterminate number of amendments they could bring forward. It is of no concern to them that we are now descending, if this is allowed to continue, into a form of deadlock. If we continue with this procedural wrangling, the government, which was elected to govern, will have no agenda. We will all become subservient to the agenda of procedural wrangling.

The standing orders are here for a reason. What the opposition members are railing against they had every opportunity to address on a number of occasions in the past. This is a form of posturing by using extraordinary devices, quite legal and quite proper in terms of our understanding of this place, but because they are using that there is also a procedural response available to us on this side, and we are moving on that procedural device simply because it is allowed and because as the government we must continue with the business of this place.

To be opposed to the government doing business is something I am certain anyone in the gallery or anyone watching this on public television would have a great deal of difficulty comprehending. Why would opposition members want to engage in days and days of debate about things that are meaningless, debates that are strictly contrived around procedure and around their view of what is right and proper.

Mr. Speaker, let me say to you, that what is right and proper is already laid down in the standing orders of this place. I know that the member opposite from Saint John would want to know that her predecessor friends, when her government was here from 1984-93, they had the opportunity to deal with that and they did not. We have had all kinds of opportunity but we are unaware that this has ever been raised in the place where it could be dealt with, which would be in a committee of the House that is charged to deal with it.

However, no. They like to suffer. I wish it were in silence but it is not in silence. They wish to suffer on the opposite side. Much cackling is occurring and a lot of monologue is going on over there but in the end it is meaningless. The vote that is about to take place will give to this place the kind of order that I am certain the members opposite want. After all, they belong to the party that espouses a law and order philosophy. We are simply following the law and order of the House of Commons as contained in the standing orders.

The end result is that we will be having a vote this evening which will bring to an end and lay to rest the misery that has been inflicted procedurally on this House by members opposite.

[Reinstatement of Government Bills, February 10th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I have been here for many hours listening with great interest to the debate. In some way it is a verbal creation of a Rorschach test. It has been very free ranging and that is good. It has covered a broad spectrum of items which is always interesting. It is sometimes difficult to discern, because we are in fact debating a motion. The order paper as I understand it refers to the subamendment of the member for Yellowhead.

I have heard a number of interesting assertions and observations which I find quite astounding. For example, I heard on several occasions that the Prime Minister prorogues the House; the Prime Minister wakes up one day and on a whim prorogues the House, it is over, it is done. That shows the fundamental lack of comprehension--I will be charitable--in terms of the shape of our system, the shape of our Constitution and the operations of the House.

Let us understand firstly that the Prime Minister cannot prorogue the House. In fact, the Prime Minister does not prorogue the House but it is the Governor General herself who prorogues the House. She makes a decision as to whether it is prorogued.

I know there are a number of doubting Conservatives on this point. I do not mean to be biblical or theological about this, but there are a number of people who are doubtful of this, as if the Governor General is without any powers or without any discretion. They say, “Show us a time when this has not happened”, but the fact of the matter is there are many times when a prorogation has been denied, many, many times, but of course members are not aware of those because that is a decision of the Governor General.

I am very glad that members opposite are listening closely. I hope they will learn something from this. When the Governor General refuses a dissolution, there is no public record of it. The only public record of prorogation is when it is granted by the Governor General. Let us understand that that is using the royal prerogative powers.

We are talking about a number of motions, amendments and subamendments which have been tabled. If we go back to the beginning of our parliamentary system, it was not intended to be constrained by rules. It was to be a very freewheeling place. About 400 years ago the whole principle of three readings of bills was created. That a bill should be read three times in a particular sequence paying special attention to it at each level was created to add order to the affairs of the state and to give Parliament a forum that was constant, was predictable and which worked.

If we proceed even more forward in history, there were many devices or procedures of Parliament which were added to give this place efficiency, to give it order, and to allow for public scrutiny of the operations here. Those, if we come forward far enough, were eventually codified because at another time they were simply the precedents or the conventions of the operations of Parliament. When they were codified they became what in modern day language are called the standing orders of this place.

The standing orders have evolved over time. They have been created to give efficiency to this place, to give a format to this place and to ensure that everybody understands what the rules are.

Indeed, we have a parliamentary committee which deals with the standing orders and is charged with examining them on an ongoing basis. We have rules which allow for the amendment of standing orders. After prorogation the standing orders can be examined and changed. That involves the members of all parties. It is not the exclusive purview or jurisdiction of the governing party; it is in fact an all party exercise.

Let us turn our minds to what we are debating tonight. The debate is on a subamendment, that the amendment be amended. It would delete certain legislation from the main motion, which is the government motion. In fact, the subamendment would delete Bill C-49, an act respecting the effective date of the representation order of 2003. I think in the popular press it is referred to as the redistribution bill.

It is an amazing revelation that the party opposite would want to delete that bill because that party at one time not that many months ago was unequivocally in favour of it. Those members loved it. One could say that they were separate and apart at that time. They were a house divided at that time, but now they have gone into this new union and what they were in favour of at that time, miraculously they are opposed to it today. I think it is living proof that one can assume two positions at the same time.

[Privilege, February 10th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the member talks about gross contempt and in doing so relies upon general statements of principle, which are not Standing Orders or precepts of the House. They are simply general statements of intention.

Now, today the Prime Minister was outside this place. There were many members of the press there. Responding to that is somehow construed to be gross contempt. What is being said is that the Prime Minister is somehow constrained by the opposition in terms of speaking to the press outside of this place.

I submit, with all due respect, that in fact this is just simply a political point that he is attempting to make in the House of Commons. It has nothing to do with contempt and it has nothing to do with rules of procedure of the House.

[Questions on the Order Paper, February 10th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.

[Questions on the Order Paper, February 9th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.

[Questions on the Order Paper, February 5th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.