Amendments to the Content of Bills

Introduction

The opportunity for the House to consider the details of a specific piece of legislation comes when the bill is debated in Committee of the Whole or after the bill has been examined by a standing committee and is before the House at the report stage. The former practice was frequently observed before the implementation of the 1969 rule changes; since then, however, report stage has become the usual method of offering all Members an opportunity to study the bill and its clauses. In either case, amendments or subamendments were ruled out of order if they infringed on certain guidelines established by the resolutions which formerly preceded some bills, on the Royal Recommendation accompanying all bills requiring an expenditure or on the principle or scope of the bill or the scope of any of its specific clauses.