Honourable senators, I rise to raise a point of order, if I may.

As I previously indicated to you that I would, respectfully, I rise on a point of order regarding events that transpired just prior to the adjournment of this chamber last week on Thursday, November 28, 2024. Specifically, I seek a ruling on whether the Rules of the Senate, in particular 9-1, 9-2(1) and 9-3, were properly followed during the vote on the motion to adjourn the Senate. I am not seeking to appeal your decision regarding the adjournment vote, but I am seeking clarity on the procedure you employed and direction on understanding if and how this process will be applied consistently going forward.

To enhance our collective understanding of my point of order, I wish to be clear that this clarification request is based on some customary practice for adjournments and the Rules of the Senate, in particular:

9-1. Questions arising in the Senate shall be decided by a majority of voices, and the Speaker shall in all cases have a vote. When the voices are equal, the question shall be decided in the negative.

The Rules continue, reading:

9-2. (1) When a question is put to a vote, the Speaker shall ask for the “yeas” and “nays” and shall decide whether the question is carried or defeated.

They continue, reading:

9-3. After a voice vote, upon the request of at least two Senators made before the Senate takes up other business, the Speaker shall call for a standing vote.

Senators will recall earlier in the day on Thursday, November 28, an adjournment motion was moved during debate on the sixteenth report of the Banking Committee on Bill C-280. Senators voiced a mix of consent and dissent.

Clearly aware of this lack of consensus and following rule 9-2(1), you called for both “yeas” and “nays” in turn and then indicated your opinion that the “nays” represented the majority. Following that, some senators stood to request the vote, and they were appropriately following rule 9-3. I note, however, that they only stood to exercise this right after you first conducted and rendered your opinion on the voice vote.

Your Honour, that is the process familiar to me and, may I suggest, to all senators as customary practice in these situations. This did not significantly change the order or substance of our parliamentary business, as evident in the scrolls for the day for the senators who came on November 28 to speak and listen to each other on a range of bills, motions and inquiries. Many of those senators no doubt felt the little chamber time left to us to do our work as November came to a close.

However, my point of order is based on reviewing available written and video records of later on November 28, when Senator Plett moved to adjourn the Senate during debate of a bill and you employed a process that seemed different. When Senator Plett’s motion to adjourn the Senate was initially put to a vote, Senator McCallum and I voiced, “Nay.” Some other senators called our voices to the attention of the chamber, and, after adjournment that afternoon, numerous senators confirmed they heard our “nay” voices. I reviewed the recording of the proceedings and our “nays” are audible. The camera at that time was on you, and on screen, you pause and looked in our direction.

Respectfully, Your Honour, I do not presume to know your thoughts, but from my perspective, those are indications that you heard dissenting voices. There was no unanimity to carry the motion. That established, I waited, expecting you to proceed, as you did with the previous adjournment motion pursuant to 9-2(1), to call for a voice vote and then pronounce your opinion on the majority position.

However, this did not occur. Foregoing 9-2(1), you moved immediately to declare the motion carried and adjourned the Senate, stopping the work we came to do and that we can only do in this chamber.

Your Honour, as you left the chamber following the adjournment, you spoke to me and gestured that I should have stood. In fact, when it became clear to me our “nays” were not acknowledged, I did stand. I even waved my arms to try to draw your attention. As your procession was leaving the chamber, the camera was still on you, so your gesturing to me is clearly visible on the Senate recording.

At my first opportunity, I am seeking clarity as a point of order because it is my understanding that a senator does not need to stand to voice a “nay,” and that standing is the process following a voice vote decision by the Speaker to request a formal standing vote.

Per rule 9-3, senators may request a standing vote but only “After a voice vote. . . .”

In this case, no voice vote was held. Rule 9-2(1) stipulates:

When a question is put to a vote, the Speaker shall ask for the “yeas” and “nays” and shall decide whether the question is carried or defeated.

It was clear that the motion was not unanimously consented to, but you did not then proceed to apply the voice vote process outlined in 9-2(1). Had a voice vote taken place, as has been the customary practice, it was certainly my intention to register a request for a recorded vote.

It is possible that some senators may find my standing to raise my concern here to be trivial. Some may even have been relieved that the nays were not registered by the chair, as the thought of another potential adjournment vote may have been undesirable to them. Possibly, some may have considered it a waste of time given the dissenting voices were audible but small in number.

Respectfully, that is not the issue I am raising. The truth is that many senators came to the chamber on November 28 to get work done that can only occur in this chamber. We came here on November 28 — and we came here today — to work for the people of Canada who collectively pay our salaries. Adjourning the Senate before most of the listed work could be done was viewed by many of us as equally undesirable. Many senators worked hard to come to this chamber prepared to speak to other items of business. In other words, we came ready and willing to contribute to the parliamentary business listed on the scroll and move through the work listed for the day.

Frankly, it is disappointing to see the Senate so often of late adjourned simply due to what appears to be infighting between group leaders over broken backroom deals, perhaps manifesting as a procedural equivalent of pique, akin to storming off the court and taking your ball with you. But as I am not a member of the Senate “ruling class,” I am not privy to such negotiations, so I am limited to sharing my observations and tentative conclusions and asking for your advice.

The substantive issue that concerns all senators is the apparent negation of the voices of those who expressed dissent, in this instance, by way of possibly inconsistent application of rules 9-1 through 9-3.

In a related theme, I would remind Your Honour that on March 20, 2024, I rose on another point of order to bring to your attention another instance when my voice was not acknowledged twice during a vote. It is an incontrovertible fact that several senators on several occasions, particularly those of us consigned to seats with obstructed views, located far from the Speaker’s podium, have raised concerns about not being seen and not being heard — in other words, being ignored — when we try to claim our right to speak.

It is evident that it can be difficult to hear and see senators who are further from the Speaker’s chair and the officials’ table. I know that other senators, including Senator Tannas and Senator Patterson, who have spent some time seated in these far corners of the chamber, have also periodically voiced concerns related to location, distance and poor acoustics that have negatively impacted their ability to be heard and sometimes seen by the Speaker. This indicates a pattern of exclusion that does not seem to be addressed effectively, and I am not speaking to intent here. I am speaking to the experience and the result.

I therefore seek a Speaker’s ruling to clarify the procedure related to rules 9-1 through 9-3, and, as part of your consideration of this point of order, I would request that you be guided by the often-touted principle that all senators are equal and, with this as the guiding principle, also study and report back to this chamber on inferior acoustics and visual recognition for some senators in the Senate Chamber and provide the chamber with a viable solution to ensure that all senators can be seen and heard from all seats and locations in the chamber.

I sincerely and respectfully suggest that improvement is overdue and within the authority and capacity of the Senate. Thank you, meegwetch.