Peter Milliken

[Committees Of The House, June 3rd, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I seek the consent of the House to move concurrence in the 26th report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

Accordingly, if the House gives its consent, I would move that the 26th report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, presented to the House earlier this day, be concurred in.

(Motion agreed to.)

[Committees Of The House, June 3rd, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I have the honour to present the twenty-sixth report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs regarding the list of members of committees.

With leave of the House, I intend to move for concurrence in this report later today.

I should say that the 26th report simply adds to the list of associate members of the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs two members of this particular party.

[Government Response To Petitions, June 3rd, 1994]

Madam Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's response to petitions.

[Starred Questions, June 1st, 1994]

Madam Speaker, would you be so kind as to call Starred Question No. 16.

Due to the length of the answer I ask that the answer be printed in Hansard as though read.

Question No. 16-

[Committees Of The House, June 1st, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I move:

That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), concerning a review of the Citizenship Act, the House authorize the required personnel of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration to travel from place to place for the purpose of preparing and holding video-teleconference sittings during the weeks of May 31 and June 6, 1994.

I think You Honour will find unanimous consent for the motion.

(Motion agreed to.)

[Committees Of The House, June 1st, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I have the honour to present the 24th report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs regarding changes to the standing orders concerning publications of the Journals Branch of the House of Commons.

At the same time, I have the honour to present the 25th report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, concerning the selection of Private Members' Business. Pursuant to Standing Order 92(2) the report is deemed adopted.

[Government Response To Petitions, June 1st, 1994]

Madam Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's response to 24 petitions.

[Points Of Order, June 1st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Kindersley-Lloydminster has raised a point which I submit is not a point of order.

The government is entitled to call whatever business it wishes on any given day with or without notice other than notice that has to be given at six o'clock to prepare the documents. It can be changed at the last minute, right up until the time it is called. That has been the invariable practice in this House.

I recognize that the hon. member is new to this place. Had he been in the last House, he would know that it was quite common for the government to call business without proper notice, with very limited notice and frequently to change the business overnight, having announced one day what it would be to change it for the next day. We were in a constant state of flux trying to know what kind of business we conducted.

The problem is that the hon. member and the members of the opposition have been spoiled in this House because the government has been so careful in giving extensive notice in almost every case of the business it is calling.

Unfortunately today the government was not in a position to proceed with Bill C-18. It is proceeding instead with Bill C-34. I admit that it was only introduced yesterday, but it is not a complex matter. It is thick but it is not complex. The Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development will soon give a speech that will elucidate every nook and cranny of the bill, and I invite the hon. member to remain for that speech.

There is no point of order here.

[Points Of Order, June 1st, 1994]

It is not. The hon. member says it is but of course it is not. It is doing better than it was. I think that is in large measure because there are fewer New Democrats in the House, but I do not want to get into that. It is irrelevant to the issue.

The fact is there are fewer members of the New Democratic Party here today. The hon. member has raised a point about the representation of the party in the House. Some of those points, Mr. Speaker, are ones you will want to consider when you review the arguments put forward by the hon. member for Winnipeg Transcona.

Many of the rulings he has mentioned are accurate citations. However, I think he has ignored, perhaps deliberately, some of the rulings of Mr. Speaker Fraser on this issue in the last eight or nine years. They have significantly altered the thinking in respect of the application of the Parliament of Canada Act to the Standing Orders of the House.

I refer Your Honour to the decisions of the Speakers under Standing Order 33, which as Your Honour recalls allows for ministers to make statements in the House on Statements by Ministers and for the opposition parties to respond to them. The question of who constitutes an opposition party for the purposes of Standing Order 33 has led to the use of the Parliament of Canada Act as the criteria for making that decision.

I note that when this very argument took place in the last Parliament the New Democratic Party fully supported the position taken at that time by the government, by the opposition and by the New Democratic Party as the third party. The position was that one required 12 seats in the House in order to have the right to make a reply to a statement under Statements by Ministers. That effectively excluded the Bloc Quebecois at that time from participating under Standing Order 33.

I would feel much more sympathetic toward the position of the hon. member for Winnipeg Transcona had he and his colleagues taken a different position in the last Parliament, but of course they did not. They may have been wrong at the time; we all might have been wrong. I invite Your Honour in considering the matter to review the authorities at that time.

I also think it fair to bear in mind in looking at this that the hon. member says he is not asking for money. He is not asking that the Parliament of Canada Act's financial provisions be applied to his party. I agree with him.

I recall when his colleague, the hon. member for Kamloops, shortly after the election said he was going to put a pitch for money in the House there was a howl of outrage from the Canadian populace. The hon. member for Sherbrooke made the same kind of suggestion, that he should have money for his party and the outrage in the Canadian public was palpable. I received many letters on the subject expressing extreme disagreement with the thought of giving money to these other parties when they had been properly thrashed by the electorate for the poor service they had rendered Canadians in the previous Parliament.

I sympathize with Canadians in their judgment. I agreed with Canadians in their judgment and I, for one, was not prepared to give that additional money. Therefore I am pleased that he has not done that today.

On the other hand, he has raised some points that the Chair ought to consider. They are ones, considering the equities of the situation, that ought to be reviewed very carefully. I invite the Chair to take into consideration everything that the hon. member for Winnipeg Transcona said and render a decision to the House that will be fair and equitable as between all the members, based on his submission.

[Points Of Order, June 1st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I was impressed with the very able argument of the hon. member for Winnipeg Transcona on this important point.

I was also amazed because my recollection is that during the last election campaign, one of the pitches the New Democratic Party put to the Canadian public was that they should vote NDP in order that they could have 12 seats in Parliament and therefore be recognized as a party, because if they did not get those votes and did not get those seats then somehow Canada was going to suffer terribly.