Chapter 23Private Bill Practice

Nature of Private Bills

A private bill may benefit the private interest of a particular individual or group of individuals in one of two ways:¹⁶

The bill may confer special powers or benefits upon one or more persons or body of persons.
The bill may exclude one or more persons or body of persons from the general application of the law.

Thus, a bill which allows a group of individuals to form a type of corporation not provided for in the general law would be an example of a bill which confers special powers or benefits upon the beneficiary.¹⁷ A bill which exempts an existing corporation from a general provision of a statute applicable to all such corporations would be an example of a private bill which derogates from the general law.¹⁸ Legislation which authorizes the marriage of two blood relations would be another example of a bill exempting one or more persons from the general law.¹⁹

A bill may affect the private interest of an individual or a defined class of individuals and yet not be considered a private bill.²⁰ In order that a bill be designated as private, it cannot include any feature of public policy because this would transcend any private nature it may have.²¹ A bill should be introduced as a public bill when it affects public policy, when it proposes to amend or repeal a public act, or when it affects a large area and a multiplicity of interests.²²

16.: See Speaker Lamoureux’s ruling, Journals (February 22, 1971, pp. 351–2).
17.: See, for example, Green Shield Canada Act, SC 1992, c 56; An Act to authorize the Industrial Alliance Pacific General Insurance Corporation to apply to be continued as a body corporate under the laws of Quebec, SC 2011, c 28.
18.: See, for example, An Act respecting the acquisition, operation and disposal of the Windsor-Detroit Tunnel by the City of Windsor, SC 1987, c 55.
19.: See, for example, An Act to provide an exception from the public general law relating to marriage in the case of Gerald Harvey Fudge and Audrey Marie Saunders, SC 1984, c 52.
20.: See, for example, Bill S-25, An Act respecting Hudson’s Bay Company, 2nd Sess, 28th Parl, 1970, (Journals, June 17, 1970, p. 1026; Debates, October 5, 1970, pp. 8797–800), and Bill C-259, An Act to extend the term of a patent relating to certain food additives, 2nd Sess, 33rd Parl, 1988 (Journals, June 17, 1987, p. 1184; Debates, June 18, 1987, pp. 7346–7). Unlike British parliamentary practice, which has provisions for a cross-category of bills having both public and private attributes, these so-termed hybrid bills do not exist in Canadian parliamentary practice. Hybrid bills may be defined as public bills which affect a particular private interest in a manner different from the private interest of other persons or bodies of the same category or class. See Thomas Erskine May, Erskine May’s Treatise on the Law, Privileges, Proceedings and Usage of Parliament, 24th ed., ed. Sir Malcolm Jack, Mark Hutton, and Douglas Millar (London: LexisNexis, 2011), p. 652). As Speaker Lamoureux stated in a 1971 ruling: “We have, according to our Standing Orders and our long established practice, just two kinds of bills—private bills and public bills” (Journals, February 22, 1971, p. 351, Debates, pp. 3617–29).
21.: Journals, February 22, 1971, p. 352; Debates, April 15, 1985, pp. 3699–700. See also Debates, February 2, 1911, cols. 2883–4, where the Speaker ruled that a bill which a Member wished to introduce as a public bill was in fact a private bill and, as such, the Member was instructed that the rules respecting private bills had to be followed. Almost 65 years later, the Speaker made a similar ruling when a private Member attempted to introduce a bill entitled An Act for the parole of Dr. Henry Morgentaler as a public bill (Journals, October 23, 1975, pp. 795–6).
22.: May, Erskine May’s Treatise on the Law, Privileges, Proceedings and Usage of Parliament, 24th ed., pp. 924–5.

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