The House and Its Members / Miscellaneous

Business of the House: notice requirement for Government motion during late night sittings

June 21, 2005

Debates, p. 7582

On June 21, 2005, Jay Hill (Prince George–Peace River) rose on a point of order contending that Government Business No. 17, submitted for notice on June 20, 2005, should not be allowed to be called for debate until June 23, 2005. On June 20, the House had sat until after midnight, adjourning at 12:12 a.m. The Member pointed out that since the deadline for giving notice had been 6:00 p.m., he should have been able to access the text of Government Business No. 17 at 6:00 p.m. on June 20 rather than at 12:25 a.m. on June 21, the time at which the embargoed items placed on notice became public with the publication of the Notice Paper. He reasoned that consideration of the motion should accordingly be delayed by one day. Toni Valeri (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons) noted that the Government had met the notice requirement and that the item was on the Order Paper. The Speaker, pointing out that it had been some time since the House had had to deal with late night sittings at the end of June, indicated that he would return to the House on the matter that afternoon.^[1]

On June 21, 2005, the Speaker delivered his ruling. He found that notice had indeed been given prior to 6:00 p.m. on June 20, that the motion had been placed on the Notice Paper on June 21, pursuant to Standing Order 54, and that it therefore would properly be transferred to the Order Paper on June 22 following the required 48 hours’ notice. He concluded that there had been no breach of the rules or practices of the House and that the Government House Leader could proceed to move Government Business No. 17 the following day if he chose to do so.

Decision of the Chair

The Speaker: I am now prepared to rule on the point of order raised earlier today by the hon. Opposition House Leader concerning the notice period for Government Business No. 17. I would like to thank the hon. Opposition House Leader for raising this matter.

The hon. Opposition House Leader argued that Government Business No. 17 could not be taken up until, at the earliest, 12:25 a.m. on Thursday, June 23, because the text of the notice had been embargoed until the Notice Paper became available at 12:25 a.m. this morning, June 21. Only then, he maintained, would the 48 hours’ notice required by Standing Order 54 have been met.

However, as Marleau and Montpetit states at page 470:

In practice, the 48 hours’ notice requirement is not exactly 48 consecutive hours, but refers instead to the publication of the notice once in the Notice Paper and its transfer the next day to the Order Paper.

This practice has been confirmed by a ruling by Speaker Lamoureux on October 6, 1970, which can be found on page 1417 of the Journals.

As hon. Members are aware, Standing Order 54 states that 48 hours’ notice shall be given for any substantive motion, and on Mondays, notices must be laid on the Table or filed with the Clerk before 6 p.m. for inclusion on the next day’s Notice Paper. This is to provide Members and the House with some prior warning, so that they are not called upon to consider a matter unexpectedly.

The time-honoured practice followed by staff in the Journals Branch in respect of embargoed items placed on notice is that those items are made available upon publication of the Notice Paper, invariably after the House adjourns.

In recent times this has meant that items are available a relatively short time after the adjournment hour, often less than an hour after the adjournment. I should point out that in the days before technology allowed electronic publishing, it was not uncommon for interested parties to have to wait until the next morning to read the text of items placed on notice on any given evening.

This practice has served the interests of all parties in the House fairly. In other words, each party has benefited from it at one time or another.

That being said, very often Members furnish copies of the items they are placing on notice to other Members as a matter of courtesy, and that is certainly a practice to be encouraged.

With regard to Government Business No. 17, notice was given prior to 6 p.m. yesterday and the motion was placed on today’s Notice Paper, pursuant to Standing Order 54. It will be transferred to the appropriate section in tomorrow’s Order Paper, thus fulfilling the notice requirement according to our practice.

The Chair has concluded that no breach of the rules or practices of this House has occurred. Accordingly, it will be open to the Government House Leader to move Government Business No. 17 at the appropriate time tomorrow if he so chooses.

On June 22, 2005, Mr. Valeri moved Government Business No. 17. It was debated that day, and debated and adopted the following day.^[2]