The Legislative Process / Stages

Consideration in committee: report to the House; inadmissible amendments

February 27, 2007

Debates, pp. 7386-7

On February 26, 2007, Peter Van Loan (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform) rose on a point of order to seek a ruling on the admissibility of three amendments adopted by the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities during its consideration of Bill C-257, An Act to amend the Canada Labour Code (replacement workers), presented to the House as the Ninth Report of the Committee on February 21, 2007.^[1] The Government House Leader argued that the amendments were beyond the scope and purpose of the Bill.^[2] After hearing from other Members, the Speaker took the matter under advisement.^[3]

On February 27, 2007, the Speaker delivered his ruling. In doing so, he reminded the House that while the Speaker generally does not intervene in committee matters, this is not the case when a committee has exceeded its authority, particularly in relation to bills. In the case at hand, he found the first disputed amendment admissible because it did not import matters beyond the scope of the Bill. He ruled the remaining two amendments inadmissible as they went beyond the scope of the Bill at second reading, and ordered that they be declared null and void and no longer form part of the Bill as reported to the House. Finally, he ordered a reprint of the Bill to replace the reprint ordered by the Committee.

Decision of the Chair

The Speaker: On February 26, 2007, a point of order was raised by the Leader of the Government in the House to the effect that amendments adopted by the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in its consideration of C-257, An Act to amend the Canada Labour Code (replacement workers) and reported to the House on February 21, 2007, are inadmissible.

The hon. Members for Davenport, Roberval–Lac-Saint-Jean, Scarborough–Rouge River and Windsor–Tecumseh have also now presented their arguments on the matter.

As the House knows, the Speaker does not intervene on matters upon which committees are competent to take decisions. However, in cases where a committee has exceeded its authority, particularly in relation to bills, the Speaker has been called upon to deal with such matters after a report has been presented to the House.

In terms of amendments adopted by committees on bills, if they were judged to be inadmissible by the Speaker, those amendments would be struck from the bill as amended because the committee did not have the authority to adopt such provisions. As the hon. Member for Roberval–Lac-Saint-Jean reminded us, this is succinctly explained in a ruling of Mr. Speaker Fraser on April 28, 1992, at page 9801 of the Debates:

When a bill is referred to a standing or legislative committee of the House, that committee is only empowered to adopt, amend or negative the clauses found in that piece of legislation and to report the bill to the House with or without amendments. The committee is restricted in its examination in a number of ways. It cannot infringe on the financial initiative of the Crown, it cannot go beyond the scope of the bill as passed at second reading, and it cannot reach back to the parent act to make further amendments not contemplated in the bill no matter how tempting that may be.

This is precisely the kind of case that I am being asked to adjudicate today.

Before getting into the substance of that case, I want to comment briefly on a precedent cited earlier today where the admissibility of an amendment adopted in committee was challenged, though on rather different grounds than the case before us now.

The hon. Member for Roberval–Lac-St-Jean referred to the ruling handed down by the Speaker on October 26, 2006 with respect to Bill C-14, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act (adoption). Although the Member for Roberval–Lac St-Jean is right in citing that decision as an example, he gives it his own interpretation. In that particular case, the Speaker carefully examined, one by one, the amendments adopted by the committee and concluded that, as regards strict compliance with procedural rules, the committee had not exceeded its powers in adopting the amendments challenged by the Government.

The case before us is rather different. Given the very narrow scope of Bill C-257, any amendment to the Bill must stay within the very limited parameters set by the provisions of the Canada Labour Code that are amended by the Bill.

I have reviewed with great care the text of Bill C-257 as adopted at second reading, the text of the amendments adopted in committee, the relevant sections of the parent act, the Canada Labour Code and, of course, the arguments presented by the hon. Members who intervened on this matter. I am now ready to rule.

In relation to the first amendment, the Government House Leader contends that an amendment proposed in committee by the hon. Member for Davenport to clause 2, subparagraph 2.1, is inadmissible because it attempts to make the Bill “subject to section 87.4” of the Canada Labour Code. As the hon. Member for Roberval–Lac-Saint-Jean noted, the first reading version of the Bill already contained this exact phrase within subparagraph 2.1(c); the amendment simply repositioned it within the same subparagraph.

Therefore, the Chair is of the view that this amendment can be characterized as a reference to section 87.4, rather than as an amendment to the Canada Labour Code dealing with the maintenance of services. As such, this amendment to subparagraph 2.1 does not import matters which are beyond the scope of the Bill and is therefore admissible.

The admissibility of two other amendments to clause 2, both proposed by the hon. Member for Davenport, is also in dispute. The first is to subparagraph 2.3 and introduces the concept of “essential services”. After hearing ample discussion in committee on the admissibility of this amendment, the Committee Chair found the amendment to be beyond the scope of the Bill and ruled it inadmissible. That ruling was challenged and overturned, and the amendment was subsequently adopted. The second disputed amendment, this one to subparagraph 2.4 and also dealing with “essential services” enjoyed the same fate.

The hon. Members for Roberval–Lac-Saint-Jean and Windsor–Tecumseh have maintained in their arguments that these two amendments serve to clarify the intent of the main provisions of Bill C-257. They argue that these amendments are admissible for they only make clearer the Bill’s provisions with respect to replacement workers as these relate to the continuation of essential services.

I fully appreciate the arguments that my hon. colleagues are making. However, I fear that their views are precisely what Mr. Speaker Fraser meant in the 1992 ruling cited earlier when he warned Members against being led into the temptation of amendments not contemplated in the original bill.

Honourable Members will know that Bill C-257 is limited in its scope. As the summary of the Bill adopted at second reading explains:

The purpose of this enactment is to prohibit [employers]^[4] under the Canada Labour Code from hiring replacement workers to perform the duties of employees who are on strike or locked out.

Bill C-257 amends three sections of the Canada Labour Code: section 87.6 dealing with the reinstatement of employees after a strike or lockout, section 94 dealing with prohibitions relating to replacement workers, and section 100 dealing with offences and punishment.

Clause 2, where the two remaining disputed amendments lie, addresses section 94 dealing with prohibitions relating to replacement workers. Clause 2 in the original Bill does not touch section 87.4 which is the operative provision of the Canada Labour Code dealing with essential services.

Indeed, it is worth noting that the very phrase “essential services”, although one with which we are all familiar, is not a phrase found in the Labour Code. The Labour Code does not use the term, but refers to “maintenance or continuation of activities to prevent an immediate and serious danger to the safety or health of the public”.

The first amendment imports the new concept of essential services into a clause originally addressing employers’ right to protection of their property. As for the second amendment, while it does not actually directly seek to amend section 87.4, it nevertheless does reach back to the parent act and import into Bill C-257 the terms of reviews of orders made by the Board under subsection 87.4(7), concepts not found within the Bill as adopted at second reading.

Therefore, on strictly procedural grounds, the Chair must conclude that the ruling of the Chair of the Committee was correct: these last two amendments do go beyond the scope of the Bill as adopted at second reading and are therefore inadmissible.

Pursuant to this decision, I must order that the two inadmissible amendments to clause 2, subparagraph 2.3 and 2.4 adopted by the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities be declared null and void, and no longer form part of the Bill as reported to the House.

In addition, I am ordering that a reprint of Bill C-257 be published with all possible haste for use by the House at report stage to replace the reprint ordered by the Committee.

Since report stage on this Bill is to be taken up tomorrow, I have advised the Table Officers to take appropriate action to ensure that any report stage motions of amendments submitted this evening are in proper form. As hon. Members know, they must be submitted by 6 p.m. tonight.

I therefore wish to thank the House for giving me the opportunity of addressing this complicated and somewhat unusual situation.