The Legislative Process / Stages

Consideration in committee: report to the House; inadmissible amendments

November 19, 2009

Debates, pp. 6939-40

On November 5, 2009, Tom Lukiwski (Parliamentary Secretary to the Government House Leader) rose on a point of order with respect to the admissibility of an amendment adopted by the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in its consideration of Bill C-280, An Act to Amend the Employment Insurance Act (qualification for and entitlement to benefits), presented to the House in the Fifth Report of the Committee.^[1] Mr. Lukiwski, in addition to noting an earlier ruling by the Deputy Speaker (Andrew Scheer) stating that the Chair would not put the question on third reading of the Bill in the absence of a royal recommendation,^[2] argued that the amendment would increase the weekly benefits payable to a claimant from 55% to 60% of his or her average weekly insurable earnings and that it would thus infringe on the financial initiative of the Crown. He noted that during clause-by-clause consideration of the Bill, the Chair of the Committee, Dean Allison (Niagara West–Glanbrook), had stated on November 3, 2009, that the proposed amendment would require a royal recommendation but had nonetheless allowed a debate and vote on it.^[3] Mr. Lukiwski asked that the amendment be struck from the Report and the Bill be deemed to have been reported without amendment. After hearing from other Members,^[4] the Deputy Speaker took the matter under advisement.

On November 19, 2009, the Speaker delivered his ruling. He affirmed that, although the Speaker does not ordinarily intervene on matters upon which committees are competent to take decisions, in cases in which a committee has exceeded its authority, particularly in relation to bills, the Speaker has sometimes been called upon to deal with such matters after a bill has been reported to the House. He ruled that the amendment proposed a charge on the Public Treasury and infringed upon the financial initiative of the Crown. Accordingly, the Speaker ordered that the amendment be declared null and void and no longer form part of the Bill as reported to the House. In addition, he ordered a reprint of the Bill for use at report stage.

Decision of the Chair

The Speaker: I am now prepared to rule on the point of order raised on November 5, 2009, by the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Government House Leader. The point of order dealt with the admissibility of an amendment adopted by the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in its consideration of Bill C-280, An Act to amend the Employment Insurance Act (qualification for and entitlement to benefits) and reported to the House on November 5.

I wish to thank the hon. Parliamentary Secretary for having raised this issue as well as the hon. Members for Chambly–Borduas, Acadie–Bathurst and Montmorency–Charlevoix–Haute-Côte-Nord for presenting their arguments on the matter.

The Parliamentary Secretary reminded the House that Bill C-280 was identified by the Chair as requiring a royal recommendation in a ruling delivered on June 3, 2009. He argued that the amendment in question, which seeks to increase the weekly benefits payable to a claimant from 55% to 60% of the average weekly insurable earnings likewise infringes on the financial initiative of the Crown. He completed his presentation by referring to page 655 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice, First Edition, which says:

An amendment must not offend the financial initiative of the Crown. An amendment is therefore inadmissible if it imposes a charge on the Public Treasury, or if it extends the objects or purposes or relaxes the conditions and qualifications as expressed in the royal recommendation.

In his intervention, the Member for Chambly–Borduas insisted that the Committee was well aware that certain provisions in the Bill already contained proposals which would result in increased spending and that the amendment was consistent with those proposals. The Member for Acadie–Bathurst added that in situations of private Members’ bills requiring a royal recommendation, the Speaker is responsible for deciding the question only once the bill is returned to the House. Finally, the Member for Montmorency–Charlevoix–Haute-Côte-Nord claimed that there had been no discussion of admissibility regarding this amendment at committee.

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 the bill in question has been reported to the House. In doing so, the Chair is guided by Speaker Fraser’s succinct explanation of April 28, 1992, at page 9801 of the Debates.

It reads:

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.

Having examined the specific amendment at issue and reviewed the submissions of all hon. Members, the Chair finds that the amendment in question does propose a charge on the public treasury and therefore infringes on the financial initiative of the Crown.

While the Chair can appreciate the difficulties that may arise when a committee must examine a bill which, upon its reference to committee, is flawed with respect to the royal recommendation, a committee must carry out its mandate without exceeding its powers. In my view, by adopting an amendment that infringes on the financial initiative of the Crown, even when it is directed at a clause itself needing a royal recommendation, a committee ventures beyond its mandate.

Consequently, I must order that the amendment to clause 5, adopted by the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and 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-280 be published with all possible haste for use by the House at report stage to replace the reprint ordered by the Committee.

I thank the House for its attention.