House of Commons Procedure and Practice
Edited by Robert Marleau and Camille Montpetit

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11. Questions

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[1]: “Nothing could more weaken the control of Parliament over the executive than the abolition or curtailment of the right of a Member of Parliament to ask a question in the House…”. Wilding and Laundy, p. 627.
[2]: Stewart, p. 56.
[3]: Franks, p. 146.
[4]: Franks, p. 155.
[5]: O’Brien, p. 362.
[6]: Rules, Orders and Forms of Proceeding of the House of Commons of Canada, 1868, Rule No. 29.
[7]: Debates, November 29, 1867, p. 157.
[8]: Debates, March 20, 1878, p. 1269.
[9]: Bourinot, 4^th ed., p. 315.
[10]: See, for example, Journals, July 15, 1940, pp. 216-8; March 15, 1943, pp. 160-1; Debates, February 16, 1944, p. 548.
[11]: Journals, March 3, 1944, p. 151.
[12]: Journals, March 3, 1944, p. 151. The text of the proposed Standing Order stated: “A question of urgent character may be addressed orally to a Minister on the orders of the day being called, provided a copy thereof has been delivered to the Minister and to the Clerk of the House at least one hour before the meeting of the House. Such a question shall not be prefaced by the reading of telegrams, newspaper extracts, letters or preambles of any kind. The answer shall be oral and may be immediately followed by supplementary questions limited to three in number, without debate or comment, for the elucidation of the information given by the Minister.”
[13]: Journals, December 5, 1947, pp. 17-20; June 25, 1948, p. 680.
[14]: Journals, July 12, 1955, p. 912. See also Dawson, p. 151.
[15]: Journals, October 31, 1963, pp. 509-13.
[16]: Journals, April 20, 1964, pp. 224-5.
[17]: Journals, April 20, 1964, p. 224. The text of the Standing Order stated in part: “Before the Orders of the Day are proceeded with, questions on matters of urgency may be addressed orally to Ministers of the Crown, provided however that if in the opinion of Mr. Speaker a question is not urgent, he may direct that it not be proceeded with or that it be placed on the Order Paper, provided also that on any Wednesday the time allowed for a question period prior to the calling of the Orders of the Day shall not exceed thirty minutes.”
[18]: The time limitation was altered the following year when provisions were adopted to limit the time allowed for oral questions to not more than 30 minutes each day with the exception of Monday when the time allowed for oral questions was not to exceed one hour (Journals, June 11, 1965, p. 226). These changes also authorized the Speaker to refer oral questions deemed to be of a non-urgent nature to the Order Paper. In 1966, the time limitation was extended to 40 minutes on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday (Journals, January 21, 1966, p. 34). In 1968, the Standing Orders were further amended to provide a period of 40 minutes each sitting day for the consideration of oral questions (Journals, December 20, 1968, p. 568).
[19]: Journals, April 20, 1964, p. 225.
[20]: Journals, March 14, 1975, p. 373; March 24, 1975, p. 399.
[21]: Jerome, p. 54.
[22]: Journals, April 14, 1975, pp. 439-41.
[23]: “Watching the House at Work,” Ninth Report of the Standing Committee on Elections, Privileges, Procedure and Private Members’ Business, December 1989, p. 7 (presented in the House on January 22, 1990 (Journals, p. 1078)).
[24]: Debates, February 24, 1986, pp. 10878-9.
[25]: Beauchesne, 1^st ed., p. 98; Beauchesne, 4^th ed., pp. 147-8. See, for example, Debates, February 12, 1970, p. 3508; May 7, 1974, p. 2096.
[26]: Journals, April 14, 1975, p. 441.
[27]: Journals, June 26, 1975, p. 665.
[28]: Debates, February 24, 1983, pp. 23181-3.
[29]: Debates, March 4, 1997, pp. 8594-5. John Williams (St. Albert) asked the Speaker to advise the House, and in particular the opposition parties, on how to formulate questions so as not to encroach on this guideline. Speaker Parent responded that “if a question is of a general nature and not hitting on the bill directly”, he would allow it.
[30]: Journals, March 21, 1997, p. 1334. In his testimony before the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, the Clerk of the House, Robert Marleau, pointed out that the government has the prerogative to change the order of the day without notice and that the Speaker is not always aware what business the House will be discussing following Question Period. Consequently, the Speaker may unintentionally rule out of order a question on the basis that it anticipated the order of the day (see Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, Evidence, March 18, 1997, Issue No. 37, pp. 9-10).
[31]: Debates, April 7, 1997, p. 9377.
[32]: See Laundy, p. 129; Jerome, pp. 51-69; Fraser, pp. 51-2.
[33]: Fraser, p. 124.
[34]: See, for example, Debates, February 10, 1994, p. 1184; February 12, 1997, p. 8014; November 18, 1997, p. 1846.
[35]: See, for example, Debates, October 2, 1997, p. 407.
[36]: See, for example, Debates, November 25, 1997, p. 2181; May 25, 1999, p. 15258.
[37]: Standing Order 37(1). This authority was first incorporated into the Standing Orders in 1964 (Journals, April 20, 1964, p. 224).
[38]: See, for example, Debates, February 11, 1993, pp. 15784-5; March 18, 1994, p. 2487; October 1, 1997, p. 334.
[39]: In response to a point of order raised by a Member who was unable to ask a question during Question Period because of the amount of time taken up with lengthy preambles, Speaker Fraser noted that it was up to the House to change the practice from lengthy preambles to short preambles (Debates, November 21, 1991, p. 5157).
[40]: Debates, June 13, 1980, pp. 2084-5.
[41]: Debates, February 3, 1997, pp. 7580-1. At the start of the Thirty-Sixth Parliament in 1997, the Speaker announced his intention to shorten the length of time for both questions and answers to allow more questions to be put (Debates, September 24, 1997, p. 23). With Members allowed approximately 35 seconds to pose questions and Ministers approximately 35 seconds to respond (see Debates, October 30, 1997, p. 1366), between 38 and 42 questions are being asked daily as opposed to the 22 to 24 questions asked each day during the Thirty-Fifth Parliament (1994-1997) (see Debates, November 18, 1997, pp. 1848-9). See also Debates, February 24, 1998, pp. 4370-1; May 6, 1998, p. 6604.
[42]: Standing Order 30(5).
[43]: See, for example, Debates, October 10, 1979, pp. 21-2; April 15, 1980, pp. 15-7; November 28, 1995, pp. 16901-3.
[44]: Speaker Parent has allowed additional questions which were not supplementary to the initial question. For examples of variations in the pattern of questions, see Debates, October 28, 1997, p. 1235; October 29, 1997, pp. 1284-5; November 5, 1997, p. 1580; November 6, 1997, p. 1660.
[45]: See, for example, Debates, October 23, 1997, pp. 1042-6; February 26, 1998, pp. 4496-9. An agreement was also reached whereby during the twelfth rotation of questions, the Bloc Québécois is allowed only one question (see, for example, Debates, September 30, 1997, p. 289; November 28, 1997, p. 2441).
[46]: See, for example, Debates, October 11, 1991, p. 3649; December 12, 1994, p. 8944.
[47]: Fraser, pp. 124-5. See also Debates, January 19, 1994, p. 17.
[48]: See Jerome, pp. 53-4 and pp. 61-3; Fraser, pp. 124-5.
[49]: The origins of the Question Period list is recounted in former Speaker James Jerome’s autobiography, Mr. Speaker, pp. 61-2. In recent years, the use of the list has often become a subject of concern to backbenchers who have objected to its use, believing it has limited their opportunity to be recognized by the Chair during Question Period (Debates, June 19, 1991, pp. 2071-2).
[50]: See, for example, Debates, October 12, 1979, p. 122.