Hon. David Richards: Senator Saint-Germain, thank you for your speech. The problem with Supplementary Estimates (C) is we had two days. We had to have translation. We had to do clause-by-clause consideration. Within another three or four days, we’re going to get the Main Estimates; they’re going to come through.

We are really rushed with this Supplementary Estimates (C). I don’t think we studied it as well as we could. It is a fundamental financial bill; it has to go through. But there are a lot of clauses in it and a lot of monies that were spent, and we didn’t get as much clarity on it from the witnesses as we may have wanted because it was rushed. I think that was part of the problem that Senator Tannas was trying to deal with and trying to explain and to come to some solution. I wonder if you could address that.

Senator Saint-Germain: On the first part of your question with regard to the notice that requires one or two days hence, I think as a chamber we can decide that the emergency exists and waive it. Then we agree that it won’t be one day hence, but will be now.

I will now go to your third question, because there is a link. If only one senator refuses to grant leave, the senator has the onus to demonstrate why it is this way. When denial of leave is only for one or two days and there is no emergency, we can cope with that.

When you refer to back-to-work legislation, generally we know that the situations have evolved, the negotiations with the unions have not been conclusive and that we will need to study the bill in a kind of emergency situation, but that does not mean that we won’t vote on a bill in a timely manner, given we have enough time to organize our work and study this back-to-work legislation. It doesn’t come with a time allocation. Each time we did this — and I remember it has been the case three times since 2016 — we took the time needed to study these bills.

To return to your first question, the issue of one senator being able to deny leave comes with the responsibility of the senator to have a very good reason in doing so. I trust all my colleagues to be responsible to that end. Frankly, when we look at the best public interest, it is normally something that we have to do only exceptionally.

If we see some abuse of this, let’s refer it to our Rules Committee to try to find a different way to address this issue. Thank you.