Rules of Debate / Process of Debate

Report stage: grouping of motions in amendment

May 12, 2014

Debates, pp. 5242–3

On May 12, 2014, Peter Julian (Burnaby—New Westminster) rose on a point of order to challenge the grouping of motions in amendment for voting at report stage of Bill C-23, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and other Acts and to make consequential amendments to certain Acts. Mr. Julian explained that the Speaker selects and groups report stage motions in amendment for voting to ensure that the House does not vote twice on the same issue, and that, while the Speaker must try to ensure that the House’s time is not wasted, the Chair must also preserve the right of Members to free speech to the fullest extent possible. He argued that the voting pattern determined by the Speaker prevented Members from voting in favour of certain motions and against others, in accordance with their views, as many amendments were grouped together for a single vote. In response, Peter Van Loan (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons) affirmed that it was the practice of the House to group motions in amendment to delete clauses together for voting purposes, and referred to a previous decision in which the Speaker had indicated that the report stage motions were not and had never been selected for debate or grouped for voting on the basis of who the Chair thinks may vote on them. The Speaker took the matter under advisement.^[1]

Resolution

Later in the sitting, the Speaker gave his ruling. Referring to the Speaker’s duty to ensure the efficient transaction of business, the Speaker confirmed that it was the practice to group motions to delete clauses together for a single vote. In his view, voting on them separately would repeat the work done during clause-by-clause consideration in committee, which was not the purpose of report stage nor in accordance with the direction given to the Speaker in Standing Orders 76(5) and 76.1(5).^[2]

Decision of the Chair

The Speaker: Before we move on to questions and comments, if there is time, I am now prepared to rule on the point of order raised earlier today by the hon. House Leader of the Official Opposition regarding the voting pattern for motions in amendment for Bill C-23, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and other Acts.

I would like to thank the hon. Opposition House Leader for raising this matter, as well [as] the Government Leader in the House for his comments.

The hon. Opposition House Leader objected to the way in which the Chair proposes to apply the results of votes taken on motions to delete clauses. The hon. Member pointed out that Members of his party had proposed 110 such motions in relation to this Bill and that other Members had also submitted some of the same motions, as well as others. He argued that each motion constituted a distinct question and that Members should have the fundamental right to pronounce themselves on each question separately. By applying the result of a vote on one motion to a large number of other motions, he feared that the Chair would force Members to vote against clauses they in fact support or vote in favour of clauses they oppose.

In response, the Government House Leader said that the grouping of votes is in keeping with the recent precedent and that it is not unusual for the results of the vote to be applied in this manner.

The Chair takes seriously its responsibility to select and group motions for debate at report stage. It is often challenging to arrive at a grouping and a voting pattern that all Members will find satisfactory, and this is particularly true in cases where there are a large number of motions proposed.

House of Commons Procedure and Practice, Second Edition, at page 307, states that it is the duty of the Speaker:

 ... to ensure that public business is transacted efficiently and that the interests of all parts of the House are advocated and protected against the use of arbitrary authority. It is in this spirit that the Speaker, as the chief servant of the House, applies the rules. The Speaker is the servant, neither of any part of the House nor of any majority in the House, but of the entire institution and serves the best interests of the House … 

The hon. House Leader of the Official Opposition is asking that each motion be voted on separately. A similar argument was made by his predecessor in 2012 with respect to Bill C-45, A second Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 29, 2012 and other measures. In the decision of November 29, 2012, found on page 12611 of the Debates, I reminded the House that:

This would diverge from our practice where, for voting purposes where appropriate, a long series of motions to delete are grouped for a vote. Since the effect of deleting a clause at report stage is, for all practical purposes, the same as negativing a clause in committee, to change our practice to a one deletion, one vote approach could be seen as a repetition of the clause-by-clause consideration of the Bill in committee, something which the House is specifically enjoined against in the notes to Standing Orders 76(5) and 76.1(5),^[3] which state that the report stage is not meant to be a reconsideration of the committee stage.

The Chair acknowledges that each clause in a bill represents a unique question. That said, it is also clear that our rules and practices foresee circumstances in which the Speaker combines several different questions in a single group for debate and where the vote on one question is applied to others. This is done so that the time of the House is used efficiently and so that the House does not repeat at report stage the work done by the committee that considered the bill.

In the case before us, the Chair has grouped all of the motions to delete proposed by a party or by a Member into a single vote. I believe this is in keeping with recent precedents where there are large numbers of motions at report stage.

In fact, to do as the Opposition House Leader has suggested would be a marked departure from our practices, would be contrary to the very clear direction included in the notes to Standing Orders 76(5) and 76.1(5),^[4] and is not something the Chair is prepared to entertain since, as all Members know, we are not here to repeat committee stage.

Absent any other direction from the House, I intend to follow those precedents and to maintain the voting pattern I proposed to the House when I rendered my decision last week. I thank the hon. Member for having raised this important matter.