The Legislative Process / Form of Bills

Omnibus bills: request under Standing Order 69.1

April 23, 2018

Debates, pp. 18631–2

On April 23, 2018, Peter Julian (New Westminster—Burnaby) rose on a point of order regarding Bill C-74, an act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 27, 2018 and other measures.^[1] He emphasized the omnibus nature of Bill C-74 and the specific provisions to enact the greenhouse gas pollution pricing act. He contended that the scope of the legislative measure was out of proportion to the related announcement and that, therefore, the exception in Standing Order 69.1(2) should not apply and the measure should be the subject of separate votes pursuant to Standing Order 69.1(1). On the same day, Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons) stated that, since the initiative had been announced, there was no basis for separate votes.^[2]

Resolution

The Speaker delivered his ruling later the same day. He noted that the provisions at issue had indeed been announced in the budget. With that connection established, it was not for the Chair to determine the proportionality between a legislative measure and its announcement. Consequently, the exemption in Standing Order 69.1(2) did apply, and no separate vote would be held. The Speaker concluded by adding that arguments of this kind should be raised as soon as possible after a bill is introduced.

Decision of the Chair

The Speaker: I am now prepared to rule on the point of order raised earlier today by the hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby concerning the applicability of Standing Order 69.1to Bill C-74, an act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 27, 2018 and other measures.

I would like to thank the hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby for raising this matter, as well as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons for his comments.

The hon. member argued that Bill C-74 is an omnibus bill, as defined under Standing Order 69.1, as it amends more than 40 acts and contains several different initiatives. He is concerned, in particular, by a new act contained in the bill, namely the greenhouse gas pollution pricing act. The hon. member acknowledged that this measure has been mentioned in the budget documents. However, he found it disproportionate that these few paragraphs, providing a brief overview of the government’s intentions in relation to carbon pricing, represent 215 pages in the bill. He is of the view that this goes against the spirit of the Standing Order. For this reason, he feels the exemption provided for budget implementation bills by Standing Order 69.1(2) should not apply and that the measure should be voted on separately.

In his intervention, the hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader expressed his disagreement. He noted that page 151 of the budget document contains a section called “Pricing Carbon Pollution and Supporting Clean Growth”. In his view, this passage contained in the budget satisfies the requirement contained in Standing Order 69.1(2), thereby excluding Bill C-74 from the application of Standing Order 69.1(1) .

The Speaker has the power to divide the questions, for the purposes of voting, on any motion for second and third reading of a bill in circumstances where the bill contains a number of unrelated provisions. The matter before us today concerns paragraph (2) of that Standing Order, which makes an exception for budget implementation bills. Standing Order 69.1(2) reads as follows:

The present Standing Order shall not apply if the bill has as its main purpose the implementation of a budget and contains only provisions that were announced in the budget presentation or in the documents tabled during the budget presentation.

The provisions identified by the hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby were indeed announced in the budget, as he himself acknowledged. The Chair has reviewed the relevant sections of the budget document cited by both the hon. member and the hon. parliamentary secretary, as well as the relevant portion of the bill. I believe there is a direct link between what was announced and what is contained in Bill C-74. I do not, however, believe it is for the Chair to determine if the proportions of a measure correspond sufficiently to the amount of the reference to it in the budget documents. If the measures are contained in the budget documents, the exemption of Standing Order 69.1(2) applies. Therefore, I do not believe it would be appropriate to have a separate vote on the provisions relating to the greenhouse gas pollution pricing act.

Finally, I would like to point out that Bill C-74 was introduced almost four weeks ago and debated on several days since then. As I mentioned in my ruling of November 7, 2017, for everyone’s benefit I would encourage hon. members to raise their arguments as early as possible after a bill is introduced.

I thank all hon. members for their attention.