Rules of Debate / Process of Debate

Unanimous consent: splitting speaking time in the first round

October 21, 2003

Debates, p. 8525

On October 21, 2003, Don Boudria (Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons) advised the House at the beginning of his 20-minute speech leading off debate at third reading of Bill C-49, Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, of his intention to split his speaking time with another Member.^[1] Following the Government House Leader’s speech and the questions and comments period, Yvon Godin (Acadie–Bathurst) rose on a point of order to ask the Speaker to explain how the time allotted for the speech could be split without the unanimous consent of the House.

The Deputy Speaker (Bob Kilger) ruled immediately. He acknowledged that when the House had adopted the recommendations of the Fourth Report of the Special Committee on the Modernization and Improvement of the Procedures of the House of Commons, including changing the time allotted for speeches at third reading from 40-minutes to 20-minutes, no provision had been made for the splitting of this time. He concluded that the Chair did not have the ability to allow Members to split 20-minute speeches, and that unanimous consent was therefore required for Members to do this.

Decision of the Chair

The Deputy Speaker: I should keep in mind of course that I chaired the Committee on Modernization.

The Committee, in effect, changed the 40-minute speeches that were originally set aside for the Government and the two next opposition parties, being the Alliance and the Bloc Québécois. There was a discussion at that time among the House Leaders and others who participated in this Committee to go to 20-minute speeches for a more equitable distribution of time.

Originally, there was an ability, through unanimous consent, to change the 40-minutes and split it. It would appear that in our Committee we did not go as far as we might have intended to, but we certainly did not make the provision to split the 20-minutes.

Therefore, in this case I will continue the debate. I will now go to the Official Opposition and the intended speaker.

I would want to hear from the Government House Leader if he wanted to speak longer because maybe it was his intent to speak less, and probably in this case the Parliamentary Secretary was going to split the time. However, in accordance with the rules we have presently—and it may be something that the House Leaders and others would want to review as to whether the intent might have been otherwise—clearly the Chair does not have the ability to allow for the splitting of the 20-minute speeches.

Of course, as is the practice in the House, we can do most anything with consent.

I will go back to the Minister or his Parliamentary Secretary and ask if they wish to seek consent to split the time. I see a positive nod from the Parliamentary Secretary.

The Government side is asking for consent to split its 20-minute slot. Of course, the Minister has already spoken, so in fact the next 10 minutes would go to the Parliamentary Secretary.

Consent was denied.