Rules of Debate / Process of Debate

Motions: denial of unanimous consent

December 3, 2012

Debates, pp. 12741–2

On December 3, 2012, Megan Leslie (Halifax) rose on a point of order to seek the unanimous consent of the House to move an amendment to Bill C-45, A second Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 29, 2012 and other measures. After approximately 10 minutes, Ms. Leslie had not yet finished reading the motion, which included a lengthy list of lakes and rivers. The Speaker interrupted the Member and asked the House if the Member had consent to move the motion. Consent was denied. On a point of order, Nathan Cullen (Skeena—Bulkley Valley) argued that it was impossible for the House to provide or deny consent until it had heard the motion read in full. In response, Peter Van Loan (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons) contended that if at any point it is clear that there is no consent, then the motion cannot be moved.^[1]

Resolution

The Speaker ruled immediately. In his view, the House was aware of the substance of the motion and there had been a clear lack of consent at the outset. Citing a precedent and the Speaker’s duty to manage the use of the House’s time efficiently, he ruled that unanimous consent had been duly denied and that the motion could not be further read.

Decision of the Chair

The Speaker: [I]f I can get back to the Member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley, it does say in O’Brien and Bosc that if no dissent is detected then the House is obviously allowing the Member to move the motion.

I take the Member’s point with regard to the reading of the names. In my view, the Member had moved the substance of the motion and was in the process of reading an abnormally lengthy list of names of lakes that would be added. She had the floor for approximately 10 minutes.

There was a similar case that Speaker Milliken dealt with, wherein the Member at that time was reading a long litany of the names of Members, I believe, and there were several points of order. The Speaker decided that because it was unduly lengthy, and in view of the fact that there was obvious disagreement to the motion being moved, in order to manage the use of the time in the House efficiently he intervened to see if there was consent.

In my view, there is a similar parallel here. As was her right, the Member sought the floor on a point of order to ask for consent to put the substance of her motion, and then got into the part of the amendment that added all of the names of lakes, and perhaps rivers, that she was interested in. Given that it was likely to go on for a significant period of time and that she had already had the floor, in the interests of allowing the House to make a decision on that, and sensing that the House was eager to do so, I asked to see if there was even consent for her to move the motion.

I do not want to get into hypotheticals. However, if the House would have granted consent, I am sure the House would have then wanted to hear the whole term of the motion.

I will hear the hon. Member again as a courtesy, but I do believe I have made my points on this.

Editor’s Note

At this point, the Speaker gave the floor to Mr. Cullen, who argued that the precedent cited by the Speaker was not a parallel case since he believed the issue in that case had been the Member’s naming all the Members of a political party, rather than the length of the motion.^[2] He cautioned the House against the practice of deciding on a motion that was not heard in its entirety.

The Speaker: I appreciate the points made by the hon. Member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley. However, I would remind him that there are two stages in seeking unanimous consent, the first of which is to ask for the ability to move the motion, and there are many reasons why Members may wish to do that or not.

I do find in situations in which we can envisage points of order to seek unanimous consent potentially take quite a bit of the House’s time and when there is a clear lack of consent right at the outset, it is up to the Speaker to judge what is in the best interest of the House.

Given the previous example when there had been a practice for the Member who was in a certain point of motion, reading names in that case and in this case listing lakes and rivers, because they are unusual and not moved under the normal rubric for motions with proper notice to see if the House would like to continue hearing the motion, or if the House is not giving consent at the outset, is where this is coming from. I appreciate hon. Members’ points on that.