Rules of Debate / Order and Decorum

Relevance: reflections on the Senate

June 8, 2015

Debates, pp. 14746, 14750

On June 8, 2015, Charlie Angus (Timmins—James Bay) rose on a point of order during debate to concur in Vote 1, under The Senate, of the Main Estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2016, stating that Paul Calandra (Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and for Intergovernmental Affairs) had referenced issues in his question that had nothing to do with the question before the House. As debate continued, Mark Warawa (Langley) rose on a point of order reiterating that references to the Senate be respectful of the institution.^[1]

Resolution

The Acting Speaker (Barry Devolin) ruled immediately after each point of order. Following Mr. Angus’ point, he reminded all Members to keep questions and remarks relevant to the issue before the House. He subsequently addressed Mr. Warawa’s point, clarifying that, although the motion before the House was unusual in that it referenced the Senate, a subject on which Members’ comments were normally restrained, the motion was in order and so was discussion on the subject of the Senate and Senators. He asked Members to be mindful of the fact that Senators were not in the House to defend themselves or respond to comments.

Decision of the Chair

The Acting Speaker: The matter before the House tonight relates to the Main Estimates and specifically a motion from the Official Opposition to defund the Senate. That is the matter that is before the House. I have listened carefully to the Member’s speech and the Member’s speech touched on lack of justification for the Senate. If and when Members make arguments that the Senate ought to be defunded because money is improperly or unwisely used, and the Government Members respond with a question that relates to the spending of money in other parts of the Estimates, including in the House of Commons, this is where we sit. There is no specific Standing Order that relates to this. It would appear that the Parliamentary Secretary is intent on asking essentially a similar question to different Members when they do this.

I go back to the point that I made a couple of minutes ago which is that the point of the rules is not to put an absolute limit on where you are allowed to go, but it is to guide behaviour of Members in the House. I would ask Members, including the Parliamentary Secretary, to keep the questions focused on the business that is before the House as it relates to the Senate. His contention that a standard that is being applied in the Senate ought to be or could be applied in the House of Commons is a rhetorical question. I am not sure that the Parliamentary Secretary needs to get into all of the specific details in order to make that point, if that is the point that he wants to make. If he wants to ask that rhetorical question, that would be acceptable, but to get into the detail of matters that are before the House that do not relate directly to the Senate will be ruled out of order by this Chair.

I would ask the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to put his question to the hon. Member. For all hon. Members that ask questions subsequently, again I would ask for Members’ cooperation to stick to the matter that is before the House related to Senate expenses.

Editor’s Note

Debate continued. Mr. Warawa rose on a point of order to say that Members were using language that was disrespectful and called into question the integrity of Senators and the Senate, which he said was a clear violation of the rules. The Acting Speaker ruled immediately.

The Acting Speaker: The point raised by the Member for Langley reflects back to comments made by the Chair 25 minutes ago, before the Member for Timmins—James Bay began his speech, which is that the general practice in this place is that questions directly related to the Senate are not considered Government business. Consequently, there are times, for example, in Question Period, when questions are ruled out of order for that reason.

However, the matter before the House tonight relates directly to the Senate. Just to correct something I said in a previous intervention, the matter before the House tonight is whether to fund the Senate. It is not, in fact, a defunding motion; the question is whether to fund the Senate. A yes vote would be in favour of funding and a no vote would be opposing that funding. I want to make that clear.

What the hon. Member for Langley has quoted from O’Brien and Bosc is correct. He read it from the book. The Standing Orders do not specifically say that is context that comes from O’Brien and Bosc in terms of guiding the debate in this place.

In the opinion of the Chair, the fact that this motion has been deemed in order to be brought before Parliament makes that the subject before the Chamber. Members are debating whether, as parliamentarians, they are going to support this part of the Main Estimates. It is not a direct question in terms of the jurisdiction of the Government. It essentially is a parliamentary question as to whether Members of Parliament will fund the Senate or not. This is the context that puts it in order.

The second point is the general practice in this place, that Members are restrained in their direct comments related to Members of the Senate. In that regard, the Member for Langley is also correct that this is the general practice in this place. However, there are matters in the public eye at this point, in the media, that relate directly to specific Members of the Senate and the spending that takes place in the Senate. Those things do relate to the matter before the House tonight.

This is a long way of saying that with regard to the debate we are having tonight, there is a set of rules that is a little different than what is normally before this place in referencing Members of the Senate. However, I would ask all Members to be mindful of the fact that one of the reasons why Members of the House of Commons avoid speaking directly about Senators is because the Senators are not in this place and do not have the opportunity to directly defend themselves and their actions. Therefore, I would ask Members to be mindful of that.

As all Members can imagine, I have listened quite intently to almost every word from the Member, not simply because he is such a great speaker, but because everybody in this place has been getting very close to the line tonight. I would again ask all hon. Members to respect not only the letter of the law but the spirit of the rules that guide debate in this place.

In that context, the Chair is ruling that the speech by the Member for Timmins—James Bay was in order. It is impossible to talk about the Senate without mentioning the Senate or Senators. Therefore, in the opinion of the Chair, when the decision was made that the motion before the House was in order and was appropriate, that opened the door to this conversation tonight.