Financial Procedures / Supply

June 8, 1999

Debates, p. 16065

During the business of supply, on June 8, 1999, John Williams (St. Albert) rose on a point of order about the admissibility of Bill C-84, An Act for granting to Her Majesty certain sums of money for the public service of Canada for the financial years ending March 31, 2000 and March 31, 2001. Mr. Williams argued that in his opinion, the bill was attempting to approve expenditures for the fiscal year 2000-01 although the principle was that the estimates and appropriation acts were intended to deal with one fiscal year at a time. He asked that the bill be ruled out of order and removed from the Order Paper. The Acting Speaker (Ian McClelland) took the question under advisement.^[1]

Later that day, the Speaker delivered his ruling on the point of order. He ruled that the bill was properly before the House. The bill was based on the Main Estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2000, and the multi-year appropriation authority covered in schedule 2 was based on legislation approved by Parliament in 1998. The Speaker expressed strong reservations about the reference in the long title of the bill to two financial years.

A similar question was raised on December 13, 1999, concerning the Appropriation Bill based on the Supplementary Estimates. The Speaker’s ruling at that time relied on the same reasoning employed in the present case.^[2]

Decision of the Chair

The Speaker: Order, please. I am now prepared to give my ruling on the point of order raised earlier this evening.

The honourable member for St. Albert earlier tonight raised a most interesting point of order challenging the notion of multi-year appropriations and I thank him for doing so.

I must confess that ever since the supply bill was made available to members earlier today, I have had several discussions with the Clerk and his assistants on the very matter raised by the member.

The House is quite aware of the concept of the fiscal year which runs from April to March, and the concept of the yearly appropriation bill which must be based on the estimates for a fiscal year and which must be adopted by Parliament to cover the government’s expenses for that fiscal year.

We are very familiar with these notions of fiscal year and annual appropriations, which are the cornerstones of our parliamentary financial process.

After having looked carefully at the supply bill which is now before the House, I am satisfied that indeed it is based on the Main Estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2000. Indeed that fact is well expressed by the short title of the Bill which reads in clause 1 “Appropriation Act No. 2, 1999-2000”.

The multi-year appropriation authority covered in schedule 2 of the bill is based on legislation approved by Parliament in 1998 by which Parks Canada Agency is granted the authority to carry over to the end of 2000-01 fiscal year the unexpended balance of money in fiscal year 1999-2000. But in my view, that money is originally appropriated for the 1999-2000 fiscal year. Despite what the long title says, we are still talking here about a yearly appropriation bill for the fiscal year 1999-2000. What is included in schedule 2 and referred to in clause 2 is there strictly for information purposes.

My ruling is therefore that the supply bill is properly before the House.

However, I must express strong reservations about the reference in the long title of the bill to two financial years. The reference is not at all needed and is in fact, in my view, misleading. It is obviously too late in the supply process to envisage an amendment to rectify that anomaly, unless of course the House were to proceed immediately to do so by unanimous consent.

In any case, I do hope that in future supply bills the government will ensure that the title reflects that the appropriation requested from Parliament, in keeping with our longstanding practice, is for the single fiscal year covered by the estimates.

I want to thank the honourable member for St. Albert for his vigilance.

P0605-e

36-1

1999-06-08