Financial Procedures / Supply

Designation of allotted days: notice required for non-deferrable votable opposition motion on a Friday; motion subject to embargo; calculation of number of votable motions

March 26, 1990

Debates, pp. 9758-61

On Thursday, March 22, 1990, the Chief Government Whip, Mr. Jim Hawkes (Calgary West), rose on a point of order to object to the request made by an opposition party that, pursuant to Standing Order 81(12)(b), a recorded division on an opposition motion standing in the name of Mr. Stan Hovdebo (Saskatoon—Humboldt), if demanded on a Friday, not be deferred. Mr. Hawkes argued that the Government had to designate Friday as an allotted day before the opposition could give notice of a non-deferrable votable opposition motion on that Friday. He added that the Government had not been given the required 48 hours' notice because of the total embargo that the Member had placed on the notice of this opposition motion and its votable status before its publication in the Notice Paver on March 22, 1990. Mr. Albert Cooper (Parliamentary Secretary to the Government House Leader) argued that under the special orders adopted by the House on April 4, 1989 and June 27, 1989,^[1] the opposition had used up the total number of votable motions for the current supply period. Other Members intervened on the matter.^[2] The Speaker took the matter under advisement. Later in the course of the sitting, he indicated that he would deliver a detailed decision in the near future but that in the interests of the House and to clear the way for the next day's order of business, he was obliged to declare Friday, March 23, and Monday, March 26, allotted days and to find that the opposition had met the requirements of the Standing Orders when it designated the division on Friday's motion as non-deferrable.^[3] On March 26, 1990, the Speaker returned to the House to deliver his decision which is reproduced in extenso below.

Decision of the Chair

Mr. Speaker: Last Thursday, March 22, the House heard extensive arguments bought forward by various Members relating to the complex and sometimes perplexing subject of supply, specifically the allotment of days for opposition motions, the notice required for these motions and the calculation of the number of these motions that can be votable.

Other questions raised touched not so much on our rules but rather on our general practice regarding the embargo of any motion by the Member who submits it to the Table or to the Journals Branch, whether that Member is from the Government or the opposition side.

I wish to thank all Members who made contributions to the debate on these points. Such discussions help us to clarify the meaning of our rules which can sometimes appear somewhat ambiguous.

Shortly after I heard Members' arguments, I stated to the House my decision that last Friday and today would be opposition days and that the opposition had fulfilled the requirements of the Standing Orders in designating a vote on Friday's motion to be non-deferrable. At the same time, I indicated my intention to return with a more detailed ruling. I am now prepared to offer Members my assessment of the contending points raised last Thursday.

In his presentation, the Government Whip maintained that two elements were required in order to have a non-deferrable votable opposition supply motion on a Friday. The obvious element was that the opposition had to give 48 hours' notice of its intention to demand such a vote.

Equally necessary he contended was the designation of an allotted day on a Friday by the Government before the opposition can give notice that a vote on a supply motion be non-deferrable.

With respect to the first element I certainly agree. The rules clearly spell out this requirement. Standing Order 81(12)(b) states:

If an opposition motion pursuant to section (14) of this Standing Order is to be proposed on a Friday, forty-eight hours' written notice shall be given that the recorded division on the motion, if demanded, is not to be deferred.

As I ruled on Friday last, it was my view that the opposition had fulfilled the requirements of the Standing Orders in relation to this, and could demand a vote on the Friday.

About the second element raised by the Chief Government Whip, the Chair has serious doubts that the Government has any direct role in determining when an opposition motion should be votable. The normal procedure is for the Government to designate the day as being an allotted day, and the opposition then decides what the motion to be debated on that day will be and decides also whether or not that motion is one that will come to a vote.

The Standing Orders list the number of allotted days there will be in each supply period and where the Government has failed to designate sufficient days to meet the requirements of the Standing Orders, by attrition those days left in the period must become allotted days, when no other alternative is possible in order to comply with the Standing Orders. That is what happened in this instance. When the House was discussing this matter on Thursday, only two sitting days remained in the period ending March 26, and two days remained in the total to be allotted to the opposition, hence Friday and today had to become opposition days, whether specifically designated by the Government or not.

The NDP, anticipating that Friday might be an allotted day, submitted a motion, on notice, on Wednesday before the 6 p.m. close of the Notice Paper, and indicated it wished such motion to be designated a votable motion. This was what subsequently transpired. Friday was an allotted day with an NDP motion debated and voted upon.

In normal circumstances, the Government, if it did not wish to vote on a Friday, could undesignate an allotted day and proceed to other business. That was not possible because the calendar ran out and Friday and today became automatically supply days.

In the arguments presented last Thursday, the Government Whip raised another interesting point, one that has to do with our embargo practices. The Government Whip stated that, as a consequence of the embargo placed on the notice of the opposition motion filed last Wednesday by the honourable Member for Saskatoon—Humboldt and on the votable status of that motion, the Government was deprived on the 48 hours' notice.

In light of the seriousness of this allegation, I think it is useful to review our long-standing practice with regard to embargoes. An embargo is a well­ established practice which entitles anyone who is giving notice of a motion to instruct the Table to withhold explicit information about the content of a motion until the actual release of the parliamentary documents containing the notice, that is, the Order Paper and Notice Paper and the Projected Order of Business paper, documents normally available early the next morning. In the case of an opposition supply motion, the embargo can include information on whether the motion is votable or not. The embargo is placed exclusively at the request of the sponsor of the motion.

It is completely beyond the authority of the Table to determine whether the notice of a motion should be embargoed. Indeed, the Table makes every effort to follow any instructions given by a Member filing a motion. Whether information about a filed motion is to be made public immediately or at the hour when the filing of motions closes, this would be seven o'clock on Monday, five o'clock on Friday and six o'clock on other days of the week, or in a full embargo when the published parliamentary documents become available early the next morning, is entirely in the hands of the sponsoring Member. This is true, whether the Member is from the opposition or from the Government. As I have said, this is a practice of long standing and is adhered to scrupulously by the Table and the Journals office in all cases, for obvious reasons of fairness and impartiality. In view of this fact, I could not find that the complaint of the Government Whip was of sufficient merit to have forestalled or affected my decision of last Friday to allow the opposition their non-deferrable, votable motion.

That being said, however, the consequences which might arise from such a full embargo are serious and the House may wish to consider whether this practice should be modified. In the meantime, the Chair and the Table are bound to abide by the normal practice which I have just outlined.

Notices printed in the Notice Paper, which is attached to the Order Paper, are intended to give the Members prior knowledge of future matters to be raised in the House. Some matters require 24 hours' notice, others require 48 hours. If some Members feel that more notice is necessary than is provided in the Standing Orders, then I suggest the matter be raised in the proper committee. As the Notice Paper is published under the authority of the House, only the whole House could alter our rules and give the Speaker new direction.

The second part of last Thursday's discussion concerned issues raised by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Government House Leader with respect to the counting of allotted days and those that can be votable. Under normal circumstances, as the Standing Orders explain, the supply cycle is divided into three periods ending on December 10, March 26 and June 30. Within each period, a specified number of allotted days are assigned to the opposition. The total throughout the three periods is 25, of which a maximum of eight are to be designated votable and, of these, no more than four motions can be votable within any one period of the cycle.

A Special Order of last spring took into account the short session in the fall of 1988 and the commencement of the spring sitting only in April of 1989, which was later than usual. This Special Order provided a different arrangement for the allotment of supply days, and the number of them which would be votable. That Special Order extended into December, 1989, and took precedence over the Standing Orders and the usual calculation of the supply days for that period. I take the point of the Parliamentary Secretary that the supply cycle is normally calculated in the way he suggested, that is, that the period which ends December 10, is the first period of the cycle. Normally in the period ending December 10, Standing Order 81(8) stipulates that six days be allotted to supply of which a maximum of four could be votable. As it happened, the Special Order provided for 11 allotted days and of these, six came to a vote, two more than is usually permissible under the Standing Orders but which were allowed by the Special Order.

From this, I believe it is logical and fair to calculate from the period that ended December 10, the opposition would normally be allowed four motions to come to a vote and therefore has exercised its option fully by designating four votable supply motions. Therefore, within the two periods that remain in the supply cycle ending June 30, four more motions can come to a vote. As it has happened, the opposition in the period ending March 26 has designated four of the motions allotted to them as votable. In consequence, there remains no more votable motions in the supply cycle which ends on June 30, 1990. As of today, the opposition will have used all of the eight votable motions available to them in the annual supply calendar.

I fully understand and appreciate how difficult the issue of supply can be. I also want the House to understand that my decision last Friday was not made lightly. The Chair is also very much aware of the consequences of a vote on Friday. My only guide however is fair play. The rules apply to both sides of the House in all circumstance. I want to thank the honourable Members who contributed to the discussions of these matters last week and I hope this ruling has clarified the circumstances that now pertain to the final supply period which begins tomorrow.

F0607-e

34-2

1990-03-26