Rules of Debate / Curtailment of Debate

Time allocation: minimum number of hours

June 18, 2012

Debates, pp. 9680–1

On June 12, 2012, Kevin Lamoureux (Winnipeg North) rose on a point of order concerning a time allocation motion moved by Peter Van Loan (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons) in relation to Bill C-38, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 29, 2012 and other measures. The motion provided for no more than 10 further hours of consideration at report stage and no more than eight hours of consideration at third reading stage. Mr. Lamoureux argued that the motion violated Standing Order 78(3)(a),^[1] which required that at least one sitting day, or the equivalent number of sitting hours in effect when time allocation is applied, be allotted to each stage, since the House was sitting for 14 hours each day due to an extension of the hours of sitting pursuant to Standing Order 27.^[2] Mr. Van Loan contended that the Standing Order would be satisfied as long as the hours allotted amounted to at least the length of the shortest possible sitting day, normally two and a half hours. After other Members made comments, the Deputy Speaker (Denise Savoie) ruled that the motion was in order and assured Members that the Speaker would return to the House with a substantive ruling.^[3]

Resolution

On June 18, 2012, the Speaker delivered his ruling. He explained that in the past, the minimum number of hours of consideration required to constitute a sitting day for the purposes of time allocation appeared to have been based on the average number of hours allotted to Government Orders per day in a normal sitting week. He noted that, under the current Standing Orders, consideration of Government Orders is allotted an average of 4.7 hours per day, or 5 hours when rounded up. He therefore concurred that the motion for time allocation of Bill C-38 was in order and advised the House that the Chair’s interpretation of one sitting day for the purpose of Standing Order 78(3)^[4] would continue to be guided by this method of calculation.

Decision of the Chair

The Speaker: As the Deputy Speaker promised the House when she initially ruled on this matter, I am now prepared to rule substantively on the point of order raised by the hon. Member for Winnipeg North on Tuesday, June 12, in relation to the allocation of hours in the motion by the hon. Government House Leader to allocate time at report stage and third reading of Bill C-38. As Members will recall, the motion called for an additional 10 hours of consideration at report stage and eight hours at the third reading stage.

The Chair wishes to thank the hon. Government House Leader, the hon. Opposition House Leader and the hon. Member for Cardigan for their interventions on the matter.

The hon. Member for Winnipeg North has argued that the number of sitting hours that can be allocated to a given stage of a bill pursuant to Standing Order 78(3)^[5] must, at a minimum, mirror the number of sitting hours in effect when the time allocation motion is moved and applied. This week and last week, depending on the day, due to the adoption of the motion for extended sitting hours, that could be up to14 hours.

The hon. House Leader of the Official Opposition and the hon. Member for Cardigan have echoed that view, claiming that the intent of the Standing Order is that a time-allocated debate have a minimum duration of one sitting day, however long that day may happen to be, as per Standing Order 78(3)(a)^[6] which states:

... that the time allotted to any stage is not to be less than one sitting day ...

For his part, the hon. Government House Leader has argued that the minimum number of sitting hours that can be allocated to a given stage of a bill pursuant to the same Standing Order need only be equal to the shortest day possible, in his view, 2.5 hours.

In the Chair’s opinion, a close reading of the Standing Order and relevant precedents will show that none of the arguments advanced have exactly hit the mark.

A review of the best and most relevant precedent available, that of 1987, cited by the Government House Leader, illustrates well the equilibrium that the Chair always tries to achieve in cases of this kind. Let me explain.

The Government House Leader stressed that on that occasion in 1987, four hours were allocated for report stage and a further four hours for third reading on a Government bill during extended sitting hours in June. He added that he believed, “Mr. Speaker Fraser likely interpreted the length of the shortest available day to be the minimum time required by the Standing Orders”.

However, it should be pointed out that in 1987, the sitting hours of the House were very different, and this is of critical importance if we are to extrapolate a rationale for what occurred.

In 1987, the House sat Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Wednesdays and from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Fridays. If one were to subtract from these sitting times all the time allotted to Statements by Members, Question Period, Private Members’ Business and, in those days, lunch hour, 18 hours were left for the consideration of Government Orders in a normal sitting week. That number divided by the number of days in the week, five, yields an average of 3.6 hours per day. In my view, it is reasonable to conclude that this is where the four hours comes from: in other words, to reason that, on that occasion, in moving time allocation, the Government of the day appears to have rounded up to the nearest hour.

In fact, on June 11, 1987, at page 7001 of Debates, Mr. Mazankowski, in giving notice of his intention to move time allocation, stated: “I give notice that I will be moving at a later sitting ... that four hours, the equivalent to one day’s sitting, shall be allotted to the further consideration of report stage of the bill and four hours shall be allotted to the third reading stage.”

This was in keeping with an earlier example on November 13, 1975, at page 9021 of Debates, when Mr. Sharp in speaking in debate on the motion to allocate time stated, “This motion allocates another five hours of debate, equivalent to at least another full sitting day”. That the two Ministers, while specifying a specific number of hours, indicated that these were equivalent to a sitting day is consistent with the current interpretation that requires at least one further sitting day when allocating time under Standing Order 78(3).^[7]

Normal sitting hours for the House are at present 11 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. on Mondays, 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. on Wednesdays and 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. on Fridays. Applying the same calculation to these hours by accounting for Statements by Members, Question Period and Private Members’ Business leaves 23.5 hours for the consideration of Government Orders in a typical week in 2012. That number divided by the number of days in the week, five, yields an average of 4.7 hours per day. Rounded up to the nearest hour would make it five hours, which is coincidentally exactly the number of hours used with regard to third reading of Bill C-25.

Accordingly, the Chair finds that the allocation of hours to report stage and third reading of Bill C-38 is in order since it respects the terms of Standing Order 78(3).^[8] Should future instances arise where arrangements pursuant to this Standing Order are contested, the Chair will continue to be guided by this method of calculation.

I thank hon. Members for their attention.