Committees / Mandate

Standing committee exceeding its mandate

June 20, 2008

Debates, pp. 7209-10

On June 20, 2008, Jay Hill (Secretary of State and Chief Government Whip) rose on a point of order with regard to the actions of the Chair (Paul Szabo (Mississauga South)) of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics and to a decision taken by the Committee the previous day. The Chief Government Whip argued that the Chair had violated the Standing Orders and the practices of the House and its committees by finding a motion proposed to the Committee in order. The motion had proposed that the Committee study the actions of the Conservative Party of Canada during the 2006 federal election in relation to reimbursements requested from Elections Canada.^[1] He maintained that such a study fell within the mandate of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, pursuant to Standing Order 108, and that it was out of order for the Standing Committee Access to Information, Privacy and Ethic to consider and adopt it. He also charged the Chair of the Committee with going beyond the powers conferred upon him by the House and disregarding Standing Order 116 by cutting off debate on the motion, noting that although the Chair’s decision that all questions necessary to dispose of the matter should be put had been appealed, it had been upheld by a majority of the Committee. Other Members also spoke to the point of order, and asked the Speaker to intervene to prevent the Committee from conducting its study until he had ruled on the point of order.^[2]

The Speaker ruled immediately. He noted that there were no precedents for Speakers suspending the sittings of a committee until a ruling was delivered and that the Speaker did not rule on whether or not committees could meet. He stated that while committees are bound to follow the procedures set out in the Standing Orders, the Speaker could not intervene to determine the correctness of a committee’s decision until it was brought to the House in a report. In the absence of such a report, he declared that there was no precedent which would affirm the power of the Speaker to overrule a decision of the Chair or of the committee itself. Making reference to the power of committees to sit when the House was adjourned, he added that it was not for the Speaker to decide the powers or business of committees. Accordingly, he ruled that the matter raised by the Chief Government Whip was not a point of order. The Speaker concluded his remarks by reminding Members that his role was to apply the Standing Orders as adopted by the House.

Decision of the Chair

The Speaker: The Chair is prepared to rule on this matter. I have heard plenty of arguments, and I am quite prepared to make a ruling and deal with this issue at this moment.

Unfortunately, the Member for Lanark–Frontenac–Lennox and Addington did not come up with any precedents where Speakers had made the ruling he is asking me to make in suspending this Committee from operation until a ruling is made on the point of order. However, I am having no difficulty in making a ruling on the point of order today, and I stress that the past practice in this regard is, in my view, quite clear.

I will read from Marleau and Montpetit at page 804:

Committees, as creations of the House of Commons, only possess the authority, structure and mandates that have been delegated to them by the House. These are found in the standing and special orders which the House has adopted concerning committees. The House has specified that, in relationship to standing, special or legislative committees, “the Standing Orders shall apply so far as may be applicable, except the Standing Orders as to the election of a Speaker, seconding of motions, limiting the number of times of speaking and length of speeches”.

With these exceptions, committees are bound to follow the procedures set out in the Standing Orders as well as any specific sessional or special orders that the House has issued to them. Committees are otherwise left free to organize their work. In this sense, committees are said to be “masters of their own proceedings”.

What we have in this case is a situation where the Chair of the Committee made a decision, which I understand was appealed to the Committee and the majority of the Committee upheld the Chair’s ruling.

It was a decision made by the Committee as a group. If I have an opinion about the Committee’s decision, I can do nothing about it until the decision is forwarded to the House in a report. It is only in such cases that the Speaker of the House has the authority to do something about a committee. There is no other precedent in this regard.

I do not make rulings whether committees have to meet or not meet. I have no power to direct a committee to do something until its report has come here and I make a ruling on the report. I have made a ruling on one. The Chief Government Whip, in his argument, pointed out a report that came here. I ruled the report out of order and that a motion to concur in the report would be out of order, and I chucked it. I can do that if the Committee brings in a report, but it has not.

Members are asking me to decide that the decision of the Chair of the Committee or, alternatively, the decision of the Committee itself, because there was a vote in the Committee, is somehow improper, and that therefore, I can overrule it or stop it from proceeding. I do not believe that I have that power.

Indeed, no Speaker previously in any precedent that has been quoted to me has exercised that kind of power.

Accordingly, I do not believe this is a point of order. I do not believe it is well founded. I believe that it is something that has to be resolved in the Committee. Committees are masters of their own procedure. They can proceed as they wish, within limits. It is when they come back to the House that they run into trouble.

I point out for the benefit of hon. Members that in the old days prorogation was a standard feature at the end of a session in June and the House would start a new session in the autumn. That used to be the case all the time until the seventies when that was kind of abandoned.

Second, in the old days, committees could not sit when the House was not sitting. They were only allowed to sit when the House was sitting. Honourable Members, I am sure, are familiar with the rules of the Senate, which are perhaps a little older than ours in this sense, where if the Senate has adjourned for more than a week, a committee needs the consent of the Senate in advance in order to sit during that week. A whole bunch of motions were passed in the Senate the other day permitting sittings of committees between now and next Thursday when the Senate is sitting again because it adjourned for more than a week.

Members can change the rules of the House and make impossible for the House committees to sit when we are adjourned if they want to, but we significantly expanded the powers of committees years ago. It is not for the Speaker, in my view, to sit here and decide what powers committees have.

The House itself decided to grant all kinds of powers to its committees. It may not have happened during this Parliament, but the Members of the House of Commons have decided in the past to act otherwise. Now we have Standing Orders adopted by the House. It is the Speaker’s duty to apply these Standing Orders.

In my opinion, the Standing Orders are in place. I have nothing in front of me at this point that I can say regarding the business of this Committee because there is no report upon which to base a decision.

I believe that is the end of that matter.