Amendments to the Content of Bills / Report Stage

Amending parent act

Journals p. 501

Debates pp. 5844-5

Background

At the outset of report stage consideration of Bill C-2, an Act to amend the Criminal Code, thereby reinstating the trial period on restricted capital punishment, the Speaker gave the House his assessment of the motions in amendment. He ruled out of order a series of motions proposed by Mr. Fleming (York West) and also expressed doubts about several other motions, including a motion standing in the name of Mr. Lawrence (Northumberland-Durham). The purpose of the motion in amendment was to provide for execution "by drug for euthanasia" instead of by hanging. Mr. Lawrence urged the Speaker to accept the motion despite his misgivings, just as he had accepted the irregular amendments adopted in committee. In rebuttal, Mr. Jerome (Sudbury) claimed that the Speaker had the absolute responsibility for judging the merits of the procedural admissibility of the motion, despite what had happened in committee and, second, the motion was out of order because it sought to amend the Criminal Code rather than Bill C-2.

Issue

Can a motion in amendment after the parent act of a bill?

Decision

No. It is not in order for a motion in amendment to propose a modification to a parent act.

Reasons given by the Speaker

The motion in amendment is not acceptable for the simple reason that it goes beyond the terms of the bill presently before the House. "Because the amendment or motion refers generally to the subject of capital punishment does not make it automatically acceptable. If the amendment seeks not a modification to the bill before [the House] but, rather, a change in the statute which the bill seeks to amend", there is no alternative but to find it unacceptable.

References

Debates, July 20, 1973, pp. 5840-4.