44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 2, 2023 10:00AM
- Jun/2/23 10:45:03 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would welcome the members who have returned.
The programming motion did not mention an exclusion of subamendments. I, as a member of Parliament, believe that it is consistent with my privileges to be able to propose some amendments at the committee stage. The right to move subamendments flows from what is referenced in Standing Order 116, namely that “the Standing Orders shall apply so far as may be applicable”. That is Standing Order 116(1).
This is the first violation of privilege. Standing Order 116(1), which prescribes the right of members being applicable from the House in committee, was not applied in the process of the determinations made at committee, and the Chair made a ruling to not allow subamendments, which were not mentioned in the motion. Having read and reviewed the motion in detail, it makes no mention of whether subamendments could be moved.
In another respect, we saw a violation of privilege in members' right to speak around the ability of members to raise points of order. Although the ability to raise points of order are distinct from points of debate, a member's ability to raise points of order, to identify violations of order that have occurred at committee, can be reasonably seen to flow from the provisions established in 116(2)(a). It says that the Chair may not limit the ability of members' right to speak and that violations of such right may be brought to the attention of the Speaker. This was also a matter that was violated.
Further, we saw a violation of privilege in the rights of members to vote. The sacredness of the rights of members to vote is well established. Every time members have faced impediments in their ability to vote or have been blocked in their ability to vote, and we have seen various instances of this have been raised, including things that are on their face trivial, such as limits to transportation, that have obstructed the ability of members to get to the House, the House has ruled in favour of members in the importance of their privilege and of their right to vote.
At committee, we saw it happen at approximately 3:15 p.m. on Tuesday during considerations of the budget bill. What we saw—
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- Jun/2/23 10:47:46 a.m.
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I am sorry. I have another point of order.
The hon. member for Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry.
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- Jun/2/23 10:47:49 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would request a quorum call again, please.
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- Jun/2/23 10:47:53 a.m.
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I will double-check if we quorum.
And the count having been taken:
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- Jun/2/23 10:48:10 a.m.
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We have quorum.
The hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan is on the right track and is being succinct with his points of order. I would ask him to finish up.
The hon. member for Northumberland—Peterborough South is rising on a point of order.
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- Jun/2/23 10:48:36 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I believe that the parliamentary secretary for finance was in the House without a jacket on, which I do not believe is—
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- Jun/2/23 10:48:48 a.m.
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I am not entertaining such points of order. The only thing that is required is for hon. members to have a jacket and tie when they are speaking.
Is the hon. member for Northumberland—Peterborough South rising on the same point of order?
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- Jun/2/23 10:49:04 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I believe that men are required to have a jacket at all times in the House. There are certain wardrobe requirements, and I believe wearing a T-shirt borders on being disrespectful to the House.
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- Jun/2/23 10:49:34 a.m.
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I have not noticed the hon. member, but I will certainly look into it. As far as I am aware, and I will have to double check, the clothing mandate comes in when members want to speak.
We have another point of order from the hon. parliamentary secretary.
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- Jun/2/23 10:49:59 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, with regard to the point of order, I want to mention that I serve on the Standing Committee on Finance and what my colleague is debating right now is a motion that the committee unanimously adopted. The Conservatives are—
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- Jun/2/23 10:50:10 a.m.
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Order. That is not a point of order.
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—filibustering when we should be debating Bill C-47.
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- Jun/2/23 10:50:21 a.m.
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What the hon. parliamentary secretary is putting forward is debate. She is trying to weigh in on the questions of privilege, and she can do that as soon as the hon. member finishes his questions of privilege.
The hon. member is on the right track to get his questions of privilege through, so if we can be patient, I would ask the hon. member to state his questions of privilege. I think we were on the third one.
The hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan.
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Madam Speaker, just to clarify, I was conceptually grouping the violations of privilege that had happened at committee. I think there were a number of violations of privilege that happened at committee.
The second issue, and this was raised as a question of privilege at committee, does touch on 116(2)(b), and that is the right of members to be able to vote. It is the right of members to be able to raise subamendments that was limited, which is a matter of privilege of members. It was the right of members, as well, to be able to vote at committee.
I remember the time this happened because the points of order were in relation to the finance committee continuing to sit during Question Period. At 3:15 p.m. on Tuesday, members were trying to raise points of order with respect to the fact that the finance committee was continuing during Question Period. While members were raising those points of order, the chair, in spite of that, proceeded pushing through to have votes take place, which a number of members were not able to participate in.
This was raised at the time as a violation of the privileges of members, and it has obviously materially impacted the bill that is before the House. This is also an issue of privilege, the rights of members to vote on something as critical as the budget implementation bill was limited by the process that unfolded at committee. This is a matter that should be of grave concern to all members.
I would just say as well that the subamendments that we wished to raise were substantive and were in fact submitted to the clerk in advance. Admittedly, they were not submitted in time for the deadline for the submission of amendments, which was Friday, May 19, however, they were submitted in advance of the consideration of those amendments. It would be impossible to submit subamendments to amendments unless those amendments had already been seen.
There would be no way to submit subamendments and get those subamendments in time for the amendment deadline, because members obviously have to be able to see the amendments in order to be able to then move the subamendments.
There were a limited number of subamendments that were emailed to the clerk. Many of them were emailed in both official languages. The clerk had them. They could have been moved. They should have been moved. It would have been a matter of privilege for members to be able to move those subamendments. They were prevented from doing so by a ruling of the chair. That ruling was challenged, but a majority of the committee did not choose to uphold the privileges of members.
It is in those circumstances, the right to move subamendments and the right to be able to vote, that I have raised this question of privilege in the House.
There is one very distinct issue of privilege, as well, that is important to raise, because it deals with what happened after the committee, that is with the process for being able to move report stage amendments and the process for being able to bring those report stage amendments to the House.
There are various services available to members in the drafting of amendments, the drafting of subamendments and the drafting of report stage amendments. These services are particularly important for members of the opposition. The reality is members of the government, when it comes to drafting amendments, subamendments and report stage amendments, have resources available to them that are associated with being in government that members of the opposition do not have available to them.
It is important for members of the opposition, especially, to be able to access those resources in a timely way that corresponds to the calendar of being able to bring these issues before the House. The right of members to be able to do that in a timely fashion depends on the ability of members to receive support from the House in order to be able to bring those things forward.
I became aware, yesterday afternoon, of a last-minute change in the schedule. This was in response to the Thursday question, after Question Period, moved by the Associate Minister of Finance, when he told the House that Bill C-47 would be brought forward to debate. He said tomorrow, which is today, Friday. At the time, I immediately sent my draft of the subamendments that I had wanted to move at committee, that I would like to move at report stage.
My view is that, given that they could not be moved in committee as a result of the ruling of the chair that subamendments could not be moved, they could then be moved in the House as report stage amendments.
Therefore, I sought the assistance of the appropriate legislative staff in preparing those subamendments and I immediately sent those in following the Thursday question, at which point we were provided information saying, where we thought we would have a bit more time, that this was required immediately.
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- Jun/2/23 10:56:24 a.m.
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Some of that is more of a point of debate. With respect to the question of privilege that the hon. member was raising, I have basically heard enough to come back to the Chair with a decision and I would ask the member to wrap it up in 30 seconds.
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- Jun/2/23 10:56:48 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I just want to be able to finish this third point. It is the final point and I will wrap it up as quickly as I can.
The issue is that I sent six distinct subamendments to the House of Commons drafting service and I asked that these be generated as report stage amendments, which was a request that I sent in as soon as I was able to, following the announcement of the change in the timeline. At that point, I expected to be able to receive that information back from our legislative staff at least by 6 p.m. so that I could put them on notice by the deadline, by 6 p.m., so that we could get the report stage amendments in and that at that point they would be on notice so that they could be moved. I did, in fact, send a letter to the Speaker making my argument. I did all the things that I could within the very tight timeline that I had.
However, of those six subamendments that were submitted to the legislative staff, I only got one of them back. Therefore, my request for drafting was only honoured in one out of six cases. I want to be very clear that I am not criticizing the staff. The staff here work very hard; they do their best within very tight parameters but it is a question of how many staff were available and it is a question of the resourcing that was available. These raise questions of privilege for members who should be entitled to move those report stage amendments. I wanted to move those report stage amendments—
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- Jun/2/23 10:58:24 a.m.
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I do appreciate the additional information that the hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan has provided. I feel that I have enough information and I will get back to the House as soon as possible.
The hon. member for Elmwood—Transcona.
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- Jun/2/23 10:58:41 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I just want to contribute some facts to the discussion of these questions of privilege that the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan has raised.
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- Jun/2/23 10:58:55 a.m.
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I will go to the point of order first.
The hon. member for Northumberland—Peterborough South
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- Jun/2/23 10:58:59 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, mine is on the same point. Please give the member—
The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes): Is yours a point of order or on the question of privilege?
Mr. Philip Lawrence: Mine is on the question of privilege.
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