Amendments to Motions on Progress of Bills / Third Reading

Recommittal; infringing on financial initiative of the Crown

Journals pp. 188-91

Debates pp. 1858-60

Background

On November 26, during debate on the motion for third reading of Bill C-155, an Act to amend the Excise Tax Act, Mr. Lambert (Edmonton West) proposed that the bill be not now read a third time, but be referred back to Committee of the Whole, with instructions to reconsider one paragraph of a clause and to substitute therefor an air travel tax as an equivalent replacement for the tax proposed in the bill. On December 11, when debate resumed, Mr. Macdonald (President of the Privy Council) raised a point of order on the regularity of the proposed amendment. After hearing Members' comments, the Speaker ruled.

Issue

At third reading, can a bill be referred back to committee with instructions that it be amended by proposing a tax to replace that provided for in the resolution preceding the bill?

Decision

No. The amendment is out of order.

Reasons given by the Speaker

The amendment contains a new principle since it would lead the Committee of the Whole to suppress a provision in the bill and substitute a new fiscal arrangement. "... the purport of the amendment ... is to reduce the tax in respect of transportation by some persons travelling by air and to increase the tax in respect of other persons. Even if the amendment is intended to affect precisely the same taxpayers and, in theory at least, to provide precisely the (same amount of revenue, it would of necessity transfer a greater burden of taxation to one particular class of taxpayers or to a particular group of taxpayers. In so doing it is suggested that the amendment is an infringement of the financial initiative of the Crown."

Sources cited

Beauchesne, 4th ed., pp. 224-5, c. 276(1).

May, 17th ed., pp. 733, 826.

References

Journals, November 26, 1969, pp. 128-9.

Debates, November 19, 1969, p. 1009; November 26, 1969, p. 1295; December 11, 1969, pp. 1855-8.