The Daily Program / Daily Proceedings

Oral Questions: questions concerning matters before committees; response by Vice-Chair argued to be inappropriate

April 3, 2008

Debates, pp. 4405-6

On March 7, 2008, Peter Van Loan (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform) rose on a point of order with respect to a response given by the Vice-Chair of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, Marcel Proulx (Hull–Aylmer), to a question from Tina Keeper (Churchill) during that day’s Oral Questions.^[1] The Government House Leader argued that the response of the Vice-Chair had been inappropriate in that it was substantive, partisan and did not pertain to the proceedings or schedule of the Committee. After hearing from another Member, the Deputy Speaker (Bill Blaikie) took the matter under advisement.^[2]

On April 3, 2008, the Deputy Speaker delivered his ruling. He referred to a ruling given by the Speaker on February 12, 2008, on a similar matter which emphasized the limited power of the Chair in determining what constitutes an appropriate response to a question. The Deputy Speaker stated that, although it was well established that questions to committee Chairs should be strictly limited to matters concerning the committee’s administration rather than the substance of their proceedings, the Speaker had no power to judge the nature or quality of the response, unless unparliamentary language was employed. He added that even though the response given by the Member may have contained superfluous remarks, those could not be construed as unparliamentary and so there were no grounds for ruling them out of order. He concluded by advising the House that he intended thereafter to demand strict adherence to the practice of limiting questions directed to committee Chairs to the scheduling and agenda of committee meetings.

Decision of the Chair

The Deputy Speaker: Before proceeding to the Orders of the Day, I am now prepared to rule on the point of order raised on Friday, March 7, 2008, by the hon. Government House Leader alleging the inappropriateness of the response provided by the Vice-Chair of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, the hon. Member for Hull–Aylmer, to an oral question raised by the hon. Member for Churchill during Oral Questions that day.

I would like to thank the Government House Leader for raising this matter and the hon. Member for Wascana for his intervention.

The Government House Leader contended that in response to a question posed by the Member for Churchill regarding the agenda of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, the answer provided by the Member for Hull–Aylmer was inappropriate because it was substantive and partisan and, therefore, did not follow the usual practice for this kind of response. He also added that this constituted a breach of the rules of the House that was deliberate and calculated.

The Opposition House Leader argued that the response given by the Committee Vice-Chair was within the rules of the House since it referred explicitly to the agenda of the Committee.

Let me begin by putting this point of order in context. It is well established that questions to committee Chairs, with the emphasis on questions, should be strictly restricted to requests for information concerning matters of simple committee administration rather than the substance of their proceedings.

In a ruling on May 20, 1970, on page 7126 of the Debates, Mr. Speaker Lamoureux clearly defined the limits of this line of questioning when he stated:

… the only questions which are acceptable when directed to the Chairman of a committee are questions which relate to procedural matters—whether a meeting is to be held, whether a committee will be convened, at what time a committee will be held, and so on;… I think there has to be a very strict limit on questions that may be asked chairmen of committees.

Furthermore, House of Commons Procedure and Practice at page 429 states:

Questions seeking information about the schedule and agenda of committees may be directed to chairs of committees. Questions to the Ministry or a committee chair concerning the proceedings or work of a committee may not be raised.

Our practice in this regard seems quite clear.

In fact, as recently as February 12, the Speaker had occasion to address the issue of questions to committee Chairs and hon. Members will recall that he reminded the House of the narrow parameters of questions that are acceptable.

He also took the opportunity to underline the Chair’s very limited powers in determining what constitutes an appropriate response to such a question. Specifically, he acknowledged that the Speaker was not the judge of the nature or quality of the response and that the Chair was, in the matter of responses to questions, limited to the language used. Thus, he stated in part:

If the response is not an answer to the question, I cannot rule the response out of order unless unparliamentary language is used in the response….

Accordingly, in the case complained of, while it appears that the response includes remarks that were unnecessary simply to provide information about the Committee’s schedule, in the view of the Chair, those remarks—superfluous to requirements as they may be—nonetheless cannot be construed as unparliamentary and so there are no grounds for ruling them out of order.

I confess that I am somewhat surprised to find the Chair being asked to examine the procedural acceptability of a response during Question Period. Whatever certain commentators may claim with regard to the prerogatives of the Speaker, the House of Commons has never, to my knowledge, required the Chair to be the arbiter of the appropriateness, completeness or even relevance of responses given to questions during Question Period. Hence, the old saw that this 45-minute period each day is called Question Period and not answer period.

However, I must say that I have some sympathy with the concerns that continue to be expressed by Members about this category of question. Questions to committee Chairs, once rare and exceptional, have lately been used more frequently. This trend and the repeated procedural squabbling it has occasioned prompts me to inform the House that in future when considering the procedural acceptability of such questions, the Chair intends to demand strict adherence to the intended practice, namely, the scheduling and agenda of committee meetings. I am counting on the cooperation of all hon. Members in this regard.

At the same time, I strongly encourage committee Chairs or Vice-Chairs, who are the only Members in a position to answer these kinds of questions, to do so in a spirit of fair play and in keeping with the very specific information-seeking strictures that apply to Members asking these questions.

I thank the House for its attention.