44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 2, 2023 10:00AM
- Jun/2/23 10:14:02 a.m.
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The report was tabled on Wednesday, and, as customary, the decision to move forward with the bill could be at any time. Hon. members know that once a report is tabled, it can move forward at any time. Therefore, I have heard enough of the arguments before the House right now.
I would ask the hon. member to wrap it up in two minutes, and then we are going to be moving forward with the orders of the day.
The hon. member for Calgary Forest Lawn.
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- Jun/2/23 10:14:46 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will conclude in two minutes—
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- Jun/2/23 10:14:53 a.m.
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The hon. member for Northumberland—Peterborough South has a point of order.
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- Jun/2/23 10:15:00 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I certainly respect any ruling you might make, but I did have my hand up prior to your saying that we would go to orders of the day after this. I would like my point of order heard before we—
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- Jun/2/23 10:15:13 a.m.
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I will be going to your point of order.
The hon. member for Calgary Forest Lawn.
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Madam Speaker, the problems first began when the minister of finance refused to appear for two hours. It is a long-standing practice that ministers of the Crown appear at committees and answer basic questions about the business of government, especially when they are dropping a $60-billion fuel onto the inflation fire they started.
I acknowledge that there are several ministers who do appear regularly at committees; however, the minister of finance had refused three separate invitations to appear, before her last-minute appearance on May 16, which is an important piece to this issue before the House today. Had she committed in writing to appearing for two hours, the events that unfolded at the Standing Committee on Finance would not have happened. It is because of the minister's refusal to appear that the normal business of the finance committee during its study of a budget bill were unable to occur, and that, instead, a closure motion was adopted, leaving little opportunity for committee members to submit amendments to Bill C-47.
I now rise in this place to ask you, Madam Speaker, to allow these amendments to continue forward as part of report stage on Bill C-47 as I believe they are within the national interest and would enhance the legislation.
To make clear which amendments I am referencing, the first one is report stage amendment reference 12475209, which proposes to amend clause—
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- Jun/2/23 10:16:40 a.m.
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I am going to cut the hon. member off there. Those are arguments that need to be made, and the hon. member has not heard the decision yet.
I will end this point of order here, and I will take under advisement the information the member has already provided, until such time as I render a decision. Then the hon. member will be able to comment on it if he wants to. However, to bypass the procedure and to argue on something he anticipates is either being put forward or not being put forward is not the proper process.
The hon. member for Northumberland—Peterborough South has a point of order.
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Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order before you make your decision on how to group report stage motions on Bill C-47, budget implementation act 2023, no. 1.
Before I get to the specifics of my request, let me say at the outset of my appeal to the Chair how disappointing it is that the debate on the budget has been shut down at every stage of the legislative process so far. In its rush, the government has, perhaps inadvertently, limited the ability of the finance committee to properly consider amendments, which may impact your decision in determining how to group motions for the debate at report stage and which substantive motions will be allowed to stand.
To remind the Chair, the budget tabled in the House on March 28—
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Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order before you make your decision on how to group report stage motions on Bill C-47, budget implementation act 2023, no. 1.
Before I get to the specifics of my request, let me say at the outset of my appeal to the Chair how disappointing it is that the debate on the budget has been shut down at every stage of the legislative process so far. In its rush, the government has, perhaps inadvertently, limited the ability of the finance committee to properly consider amendments, which may impact your decision in determining how to group motions for the debate at report stage and which substantive motions will be allowed to stand.
To remind the Chair, the budget tabled in the House on March 28—
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- Jun/2/23 10:18:12 a.m.
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I have a point of order on your point of order.
The hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.
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- Jun/2/23 10:18:15 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, this is highly irregular, and it defies a process that has been well established, not only with this government—
Mr. Garnett Genuis: Point of order.
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- Jun/2/23 10:18:26 a.m.
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One moment please.
We have already started hearing part of what this is, but we have not heard what the point of order is that the hon. parliamentary secretary is saying.
I will allow the hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan a point of order once we have heard the basics of this point of order.
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- Jun/2/23 10:18:46 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, there is well-established process that needs to be followed in order to be able to do what it is that the Conservative opposition party is attempting to do. The Conservatives have known, and we, as a government, have followed due process. We can go back to Wednesday and to the Thursday question. All of this has been before the House. What is not appropriate is for opposition members to anticipate the type of ruling that you could make, Madam Speaker, and addressing it at this point in in time.
The opportunity was there. Maybe the Conservatives did not do their homework, or whatever it is, but that does not justify their breaking the process that has long been a procedure of the House, not only for the current government but also for the governments before it.
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- Jun/2/23 10:19:38 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, it was actually a point of order on the process for raising points of order during points of order. This member has, on multiple occasions, interrupted a point of order. When another member is raising and explaining a matter of order, his point of order should not take precedence over an existing point of order on the floor.
I think he has also failed to take note of the fact that the member for Northumberland—Peterborough South's point of order was distinct from the point of order raised by the member for Calgary Forest Lawn.
His objection may have had some relation to the previous point of order, but it does not have any relation to the one currently being raised.
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- Jun/2/23 10:20:26 a.m.
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I have not heard enough of the point of order from the hon. member for Northumberland—Peterborough South to determine whether it is in order, so if we can allow him to elaborate. It is different from the previous point of order. This is more about regrouping. Again, it seems to border on a decision that has not been rendered yet. I will just double check that by allowing him to elaborate a little bit more on his point of order before I indicate whether I will allow him to go even further.
The hon. member for Northumberland—Peterborough South.
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- Jun/2/23 10:21:11 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, as always, I appreciate your patience on these matters.
It is normal, of course, for a government to table a budget and then get a bump in the polls, but this budget is so unpopular with Canadians that the Liberals actually dropped in the polls after the finance minister tabled it in the House—
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- Jun/2/23 10:21:35 a.m.
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Some of what the hon. member is bringing up is debate. I would just ask him to get to his point of order without bringing debates into the matter.
The hon. member for Northumberland—Peterborough South.
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- Jun/2/23 10:21:54 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will jump ahead in my remarks here in order to expedite things, given your continued patience.
I will start here and, I promise, get to my point relatively quickly. This little bit of context is important and germane to my point. I am just going through the facts here.
On May 29, beginning at 4:30 p.m., the Chair was empowered by a programming motion to put every question necessary to dispose of the bill without further debate and then report the bill to the House. The Chair interrupted the programming motion in such a way that the amendments could not be table-dropped or moved from the floor. Instead, he ruled that the only amendments that could properly be moved were to the ones provided to the Clerk before May 19. Notably, this was before testimony was supposed to be wrapped up. He also ruled that subamendments could not be moved, because members would need the floor in order to move a subamendment, but he refused to allow debate under the programming motion.
These rulings by the member for Mississauga East—Cooksville made the committee even more dysfunctional but, importantly, at the heart of—
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- Jun/2/23 10:23:07 a.m.
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I just want to remind the member that decisions made by the committee are not things that the Speaker can rule on, as mentioned on a number of occasions while I have been here. Other speakers have also indicated that we do not give rulings to committees. Committees are an entity in themselves and make their own decisions.
If there are matters about the report itself, those matters within the report are what can be debated. At this point in time, I am not satisfied with the additional information the hon. member is providing, especially given the fact that there has not been a decision read out and rendered by the Speaker.
The hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan has a point of order.
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- Jun/2/23 10:24:06 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I recognize the correctness of everything you said, but I would add that there is an exception to the Standing Orders in terms of the Speaker's power as it relates to what happens at committee. Standing Order 116(2)(b) reads:
A violation of paragraph (a) of this section may be brought to the attention of the Speaker by any member and the Speaker shall have the power to rule on the matter. If, in the opinion of the Speaker, such violation has occurred, the Speaker may order that all subsequent proceedings in relation to the said violation be nullified.
I believe that may have been where the member was going. I am not entirely sure but, certainly in my own view, there were things that occurred at the finance committee that were in violation of Standing Order 116(2)(a), which is referenced in Standing Order 116(2)(b). Therefore, I think those arguments can at least be made, given this particular and admittedly very unique exception to the Standing Orders that allows matters from committee to be brought directly to the attention of the Speaker.
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