Proceedings of the Standing Committee on
Rules, Procedures and the Rights of Parliament

Issue 16 - Seventh Report of the Committee

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

The Standing Committee on Rules, Procedures and the Rights of Parliament has the honour to present its

SEVENTH REPORT

Pursuant to Rule 86(1)(f)(i), your committee is pleased to report as follows:

Changes to the Rules of the Senate take effect at the time they are adopted by the Senate. A printed consolidation containing these changes is not, however, automatically prepared when a change is adopted, and the on-line version is not immediately updated.

Instead, current practice in relation to printing updated versions of the Rules of the Senate and integrating changes into the on-line version is that a new version, containing previously approved modifications, must be approved by your committee before being tabled in the Senate. It is only when the new version is tabled that it is printed and posted on- line. To repeat, the changes contained in this updated version were approved previously by the Senate, and entered into force at that time.

This process sometimes leads to significant delays between a change to the rules being approved by the Senate and the new text appearing in printed or on-line format, with consequential inconvenience to senators and other users. To avoid such delays, your committee recommends:

1. That the Clerk of the Senate be authorized to prepare and print from time to time, as required, for tabling in the Senate by the Speaker, consolidated versions of the Rules of the Senate containing any changes approved by the Senate to that time and any minor typographical corrections.

2. That the Clerk of the Senate be authorized to update the on-line version of the Rules of the Senate from the time any change is approved by the Senate.

Respectfully submitted,

DONALD H. OLIVER

Chair