Amendments to the Content of Bills / Report Stage

Motion in amendment, beyond scope of bill

Journals p. 594

Debates pp. 4129-30

Background

On February 16, during consideration at the report stage of Bill C-2, an Act to facilitate the making of advance payments for crops, Mr. Schellenberger (Wetaskiwin) moved that Clause 4 be amended to enable payments to be made without the intervention of a producer association in cases where there was no suitable organization willing to assume the obligations of the Act.

Mr. Pelletier (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture) rose on a point of order to ask the Speaker to rule on the acceptability of the motion, alleging that it went beyond the scope of the bill. The Speaker expressed certain reservations as to the motion's acceptability, but after a brief debate on the point of order he allowed debate on the motion to proceed while deferring his ruling.

Issue

Does the motion in amendment introduce a new proposition that goes beyond the scope of the original bill?

Decision

The amendment introduces a new concept and is consequently unacceptable.

Reasons given by the Speaker

"The role of the organization spelled out in every clause in the bill is so fundamental to the operation of the statute that it is more than simply an incidental aspect of the machinery of the bill, and any attempt to try to produce the same effect without the producer organization would, in my opinion, be the introduction of an entirely new concept."

References

Debates, February 16, 1977, pp. 3119-20.