Mr. Speaker, I rise with a more detailed response to the official opposition House leader's point of order of last night on government Motion No. 2. Quite simply, the entire motion has a unifying purpose: the arrangement of business here and in our committees for the autumn.
As I said yesterday, it is a fair, balanced and principle-based proposal for restoring everyone's business without prejudice resulting from the prorogation and enabling the government to bring forward a Speech from the Throne. The “chapeau” of the motion, the words before paragraph (a), say just as much: “...for the purposes of facilitating and organizing the business of the House and its committees in the autumn of 2013...”.
Of course the main thrust of the motion provides for us to pick up where we left off in June with business where it was, whether it be government legislation, studies by the procedure and House affairs committee arranged by unanimous consent, a special committee that was set up unanimously in February or a finance committee study flowing from a private member's motion. We also see some housekeeping schedule amendments, by revising a couple of deadlines in our Standing Orders in view of the time frame available for us this autumn, as well as the customary accommodation of a political party's national convention. However the principle is simple: no member of Parliament, no party, whether government or opposition, should see their priorities cut off or cut short or diverted simply because of the fact of prorogation.
As we heard yesterday, one political party, the NDP, has a concern, “a fundamental concern”, if we go by some public comments the hon. member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley made about our negotiations, with just one clause of the motion.
Our rules and procedures have a long and proven way of handling this type of objection, and that is by proposing amendments. Citation 567 of Beauchesne's Parliamentary Rules & Forms, sixth edition, tells us that:
The object of an amendment may be either to modify a question in such a way as to increase its acceptability or to present to the House a different proposition as an alternative to the original question.
If it is the perspective of the opposition that government Motion No. 2 could be improved, then it is open to it to propose an amendment and then to let the House decide whether it is actually an improvement.
Motions that reinstate business are not novel. Page 383 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice, second edition, makes reference to this procedure. If one looks back through our records, one will see that such motions have been proposed at the start of second or subsequent sessions of Parliament by parties on both sides of the House in 1991, 1996, 1999, 2002, 2004 and 2007.
Some of these motions were not just limited to the conduct of government legislation. For example, in 1996 government Motion No. 1 provided for the continuation of private members' bills as well as a series of temporary standing order amendments on the business of supply. In 2002, government Motion No. 2 provided for the re-establishment of a special committee, as we heard.
At other times, too, the House has considered multifaceted motions that either amended the Standing Orders or implemented a sessional or a special order to facilitate the conduct of our business. The most recent is government Motion No. 17 just this May. The motion was ruled by you, sir, on May 22, 2013, at pages 16804 and 16805 of House of Commons Debates to be in order.
Should the Chair, however, be open to the hon. member's argument on dividing the motion, let me offer a few comments on that front.
Citation 557(2) of Beauchesne's advises from a 1966 ruling of Mr. Speaker Lamoureux that, “It is only in exceptional circumstances, and when there is little doubt, that the Speaker may intervene...”.
More recently, Mr. Speaker Milliken said on October 4, 2002, at page 299 of the Debates that:
Research into Canadian practice reveals few instances where a Speaker has moved to divide a motion. In my view, this indicates that the Chair must exercise every caution before intervening in the deliberations of the House in the manner requested in this instance.
As a testament to just how rare it is, pages 562 and 563 of O'Brien and Bosc refer to five previous instances where the matter of dividing motions arose. Of those cases, one saw unanimous consent giving the Speaker that authority, and another—the case forming the Beauchesne's citation I just read—saw the Chair decline to intervene. Of the three remaining cases, one instance related to a government motion proposing a new flag for Canada and the future standing of the Union Jack, an issue that any student of Canadian history or of this place would know was an emotionally supercharged debate dominating the 26th Parliament.
That motion was divided into separate motions for debate by Mr. Speaker Macnaughton on June 15, 1964. Mr. Speaker Macnaughton based his approach on the prevailing British practice at the time, since our rules were silent. Standing Order 1 required him to look to Westminster in such unprovided-for cases.
With respect to that selfsame British approach, page 389 of Erskine May's Parliamentary Practice, 20th Edition informs us that “The House does not recognize the right of individual Members to insist on the division of motions giving special facilities for the transaction of public business”.
Government Motion No. 2 refers to facilitating or giving facilities for the conduct of public business this fall in the chamber and in our committees. We are not dealing here with an emotionally fraught debate that goes to the heart of how we identify ourselves as Canadians. We are simply dealing with a proposal to reconcile the business of the House and committees to our calendar and circumstances this autumn, but particularly to see things picked up where we left off, without just cherry-picking the stuff we like that we initiated last session. It is indeed an approach that is fair to all that seeks to allow everyone's business, not just the government's business, to be restored.
In 2002, Mr. Speaker Milliken hived off for separate debate a portion of government Motion No. 2, which related to future travel authority for our committee, because it was not cognate with the purpose of the motion, as expressed on its face, “to provide for the resumption and continuation of the business of the House begun in the previous Session”.
As I quoted earlier, the opening words of our motion are not limited in scope to business from the past session. They make reference to the facilitation and organization of business this autumn that is going forward into this session. In our case, there is really just one element singled out by one corner of the House for objection. The way of dealing with that objection is not to throw out the motion, or even to exercise the extraordinary and exceedingly rare power to divide it. The simplest course of action is to allow the debate to proceed as normal and await an amendment to be proposed thereto. In other words, to rephrase our position, consistent with the approach laid out by Speaker Lamoureux, there is significant doubt that the best way of dealing with the situation is through dividing government Motion No. 2.
The solution is not to veto our proposal from going forward by having the motion ruled out of order simply because one does not like it. That is not democracy. Democracy is served best through debating a proposal, considering an amendment, and making a decision at the end of the day to vote.
