Chapter 9Sittings of the House
Special or Unusual Sittings
The House sometimes alters its normal schedule of sittings to accommodate events or ceremonies that are out of the ordinary. These special sittings have included sittings for the sole purpose of attendance at a Royal Assent ceremony, sittings for the purpose of electing a Speaker, secret sittings, and sittings to hear addresses by distinguished visitors.
Sitting for the Sole Purpose of Attending a Royal Assent Ceremony
Royal Assent, when a bill is approved by a representative of the Crown, may be signified in two ways: either by written declaration, or by a traditional ceremony, one that must take place in the Senate Chamber.129
The Royal Assent Act dictates that a traditional ceremony must be held at least twice a year and that one of the occasions must be to give Royal Assent to the first appropriation bill in a session.130 The ceremony brings together the three constituent parts of Parliament: the Crown, the Senate, and the House of Commons. Traditional Royal Assent ceremonies may also take place when the House stands adjourned. When these occur, the House must be recalled so that it may proceed to the Senate for Royal Assent.
In the late 1980s, the House regularly adopted special orders permitting the Speaker, during periods of adjournment, to recall the House for the sole purpose of attending Royal Assent.131 The Standing Order authorizing the Speaker to recall the House if it is deemed to be in the public interest has also been invoked to recall the House for Royal Assent.132 In 1994 the House adopted Standing Order 28(4), which explicitly authorizes the Speaker to recall the House at the request of the government for the sole purpose of attending Royal Assent.133
A sitting for the sole purpose of attending a Royal Assent ceremony is treated as a recall of the House with proper notice given so that the Speaker, or his or her deputy, may make the necessary preparations. The Speaker notifies the Clerk of the House of Commons and asks that the necessary steps be taken to recall the House. The Clerk carries out this responsibility by informing the offices of the Whips, House Leaders, Chair Occupants and independent Members of the date and time of the special sitting.
The House does not need a quorum for the Speaker to take the Chair when the Usher of the Black Rod appears in the Chamber to request the attendance of Members in the Senate since, in responding to a summons of the Crown, the House is simply being asked to witness an event rather than to make a decision.134 At the conclusion of the ceremony, the Speaker returns to the House and, once in the Chair, reports that the Governor General was pleased to give Royal Assent to certain bills in the Sovereign’s name. The Speaker then immediately adjourns the House135 without proceeding to any other business.136
A sitting for Royal Assent is not considered to be a regular sitting of the House or a full sitting day. The sitting number assigned to the previous complete regular sitting of the House is therefore again assigned to the sitting for Royal Assent, followed by a letter.137
Election of a Speaker
The election of the Speaker of the House of Commons is provided for in the Constitution. An election is held when the first session of a Parliament is opened,138 when the Speaker resigns or indicates his or her intention to resign during the Parliament, or if a vacancy occurs for any other reason.139 This constitutional obligation serves as a basis for the Standing Orders governing when and under what circumstances the election is to be held.140
The House of Commons is not properly constituted until the Speaker is elected. Therefore, until the Speaker has been elected and takes the chair, no other business may be addressed, and no motion for adjournment nor any other motion may be entertained. The process for the election of the Speaker continues until one candidate has received a majority of the votes cast.141 If necessary, the House may sit beyond the ordinary hour of daily adjournment.142 When the Speaker has been elected and has taken the Chair, the Sergeant-at-Arms takes the Mace, the symbol of the authority of the House of Commons, from under the Table and places it on the Table, signifying that the House is duly constituted. After a period of acknowledgements and congratulations, the new Speaker usually informs the Members of the message from the Governor General announcing the time and date for the Speech from the Throne and then adjourns the House until the next sitting day.
Secret Sittings
Although it is not explicitly stated in the Standing Orders, the House has the privilege, the historical right, and the authority to conduct its proceedings in private. This has been referred to as a “secret sitting”. The House may conduct an entire sitting or a portion of a sitting where “strangers” (anyone who is not a Member or an official of the House of Commons) are either not admitted or asked to withdraw from the galleries of the House.143 These meetings are regarded as sittings and are noted as such in the documents of the House. To conduct a secret sitting, the House has either adopted a special order to initiate the proceeding,144 or has simply not opened the doors of the House to the public following the prayer at the beginning of a sitting.145
The House has met in secret on five occasions, four of them during wartime.146 In the years shortly after Confederation, the House would, upon the commencement of a sitting but prior to the doors being opened to the public, conduct a portion of its sittings out of public view in order to discuss internal or “domestic” matters.147
Addresses by Distinguished Visitors
From time to time, the House of Commons Chamber is the site for a joint address to Parliament by a distinguished visitor (usually a head of state or head of government). Since the early 1940s, numerous distinguished visitors have addressed Members of the Senate and the House of Commons from the floor of the Chamber (see Figure 9.1, “Joint Addresses to Parliament Since 1940”).
December 30, 1941 |
Winston Churchill, Prime Minister, United Kingdom |
June 16, 1943 |
Madame Chiang Kai-shek, Spouse of the Leader of the Republic of China |
June 1, 1944 |
John C. Curtin, Prime Minister, Australia |
June 30, 1944 |
Peter Fraser, Prime Minister, New Zealand |
November 19, 1945 |
Clement R. Attlee, Prime Minister, United Kingdom |
June 11, 1947 |
Harry S. Truman, President, United States |
October 24, 1949 |
Pandit Jewaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister, India |
May 31, 1950 |
Liaquat Ali Khan, Prime Minister, Pakistan |
April 5, 1951 |
Vincent Auriol, President, French Republic |
November 14, 1953 |
Dwight D. Eisenhower, President, United States |
February 6, 1956 |
Sir Anthony Eden, Prime Minister, United Kingdom |
March 5, 1956 |
Giovanni Gronchi, President, Republic of Italy |
June 5, 1956 |
Achmed Sukarno, President, Republic of Indonesia |
March 4, 1957 |
Guy Mollet, Prime Minister, French Republic |
June 2, 1958 |
Theodor Heuss, President, Federal Republic of Germany |
June 13, 1958 |
Harold Macmillan, Prime Minister, United Kingdom |
July 9, 1958 |
Dwight D. Eisenhower, President, United States |
July 21, 1958 |
Kwame Nkrumah, Prime Minister, Ghana |
May 17, 1961 |
John F. Kennedy, President, United States |
May 26, 1964 |
U Thant, Secretary-General, United Nations |
April 14, 1972 |
Richard M. Nixon, President, United States |
March 30, 1973 |
Luis Echeverria, President, Mexico |
June 19, 1973 |
Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister, India |
May 5, 1980 |
Masayoshi Ohira, Prime Minister, Japan |
May 26, 1980 |
José Lopez Portillo, President, Mexico |
March 11, 1981 |
Ronald W. Reagan, President, United States |
September 26, 1983 |
Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister, United Kingdom |
January 17, 1984 |
Zhao Ziyang, Premier, State Council, People’s Republic of China |
May 8, 1984 |
Miguel de la Madrid, President, Mexico |
March 7, 1985 |
Javier Perez de Cuellar, Secretary-General, United Nations |
January 13, 1986 |
Yasuhiro Nakasone, Prime Minister, Japan |
April 6, 1987 |
Ronald W. Reagan, President, United States |
May 25, 1987 |
François Mitterand, President, French Republic |
May 10, 1988 |
Her Majesty Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands |
June 16, 1988 |
Helmut Kohl, Chancellor, Federal Republic of Germany |
June 22, 1988 |
Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister, United Kingdom |
February 27, 1989 |
Chaim Herzog, President, State of Israel |
October 11, 1989 |
His Majesty King Hussein Bin Talal, Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan |
June 18, 1990 |
Nelson Mandela, Deputy President, African National Congress |
April 8, 1991 |
Carlos Salinas de Gortari, President, Mexico |
June 19, 1992 |
Boris Yeltsin, President, Federation of Russia |
February 23, 1995 |
William J. Clinton, President, United States |
June 11, 1996 |
Ernesto Zedillo, President, Mexico |
September 24, 1998 |
Nelson Mandela, President, Republic of South Africa |
April 29, 1999 |
Vaclav Havel, President, Czech Republic |
February 22, 2001 |
Tony Blair, Prime Minister, United Kingdom |
March 9, 2004 |
Kofi Annan, Secretary-General, United Nations |
October 25, 2004 |
Vicente Fox Quesada, President, Mexico |
May 18, 2006 |
John Howard, Prime Minister, Australia |
September 22, 2006 |
Hamid Karzaï, President, Islamic Republic of Afghanistan |
May 26, 2008 |
Victor Yushchenko, President, Ukraine |
May 27, 2010 |
Felipe Calderón, President, Mexico |
September 22, 2011 |
David Cameron, Prime Minister, United Kingdom |
February 27, 2014 |
His Highness the Aga Khan, 49th Hereditary Imam of the Shia Imami Ismaili Muslims |
September 17, 2014 |
Petro Poroshenko, President, Ukraine |
November 3, 2014 |
François Hollande, President, French Republic |
June 29, 2016 |
Barack H. Obama, President, United States |
April 12, 2017 |
Malala Yousafzai, Recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize |
Since the 1970s, the normal practice has been for the House to adopt, without debate, a motion for a joint address to take place at some subsequent moment.148 In addition to the order to append the address and related speeches to the Debates,149 the motion has at times also included the date and time of the adjournment of the House, as well as other stipulations related to the Order of business on the day of the address. Since 1980, the motion has also authorized the media to broadcast the address and related speeches.150
When a joint address takes place, Senators and Members of the House of Commons assemble in the House of Commons Chamber. This does not constitute a sitting and the Mace is not on the Table, but an established protocol is nonetheless followed.
The seating arrangements in the House are different from those of regular sittings. The Speaker of the House takes the Chair, with the Speaker of the Senate seated in a chair to the Speaker’s right. The Table is cleared of the usual paraphernalia and a lectern is placed at its head. The Prime Minister and the distinguished visitor are seated along the side of the Table to the Speaker’s right; the Clerk of the Senate and the Clerk of the House of Commons are seated along the other side of the Table. The rest of the official party, the Justices of the Supreme Court, and the Senators are seated on the floor of the House in front of the Table.
On arrival at the Centre Block, the distinguished visitor is met in Confederation Hall by the Prime Minister and the Speakers of both Houses, the leaders of the parties in both Houses, the Clerk of the Senate and the Clerk of the House of Commons, the Usher of the Black Rod, and the Sergeant-at-Arms. The Speaker of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Commons invite the guest to sign the visitors books for the respective Houses. Then the Prime Minister, the visitor, the two Speakers, and the two Clerks are escorted to the office of the Speaker of the House of Commons by the Usher of the Black Rod and the Sergeant-at-Arms, while the party leaders are escorted to the House of Commons by pages from the Senate and the House of Commons.
At the appointed hour, the official party enters the House of Commons Chamber. After providing a brief introduction, the Speaker of the House of Commons invites the Prime Minister to address the assembly. The Prime Minister takes the floor and presents the distinguished visitor. Following the visitor’s address, he or she is thanked by the Speaker of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Commons, who concludes the assembly. The official party then exits the Chamber and returns to the office of the Speaker of the House of Commons in this order: the Usher of the Black Rod first, followed by the distinguished visitor and the Prime Minister, the Speaker of the Senate, the Clerk of the Senate, the Sergeant-at-Arms, the Speaker of the House of Commons and the Clerk of the House of Commons.