One Canadian Economy Bill
Point of Order--Speaker's Ruling Reserved
June 25, 2025
Honourable senators, I rise on a point of order concerning the vote on Bill C-5, and in particular, the process by which this chamber will be asked to render a final decision at third reading.
Your Honour, having consulted with parliamentary colleagues, Indigenous and civil society leaders, and thanks to my office team and Chamber Operations and Procedure Office, or COPO, I rise today to raise this point of order and request you to rule on how this house should vote on this bill.
I acknowledge that the Speaker in the other place had greater precedence for his decision to allow two votes on this bill: one on Part 1 and another on Part 2. This bill presents a complex legislative proposal that includes two distinct and unrelated components.
As currently framed, it requires senators to cast a single vote either in favour of or against the entire package. This approach is procedurally problematic and places senators in an untenable position, particularly those who support one part of the bill but not the other.
Your Honour, I would ask you to please consider that on November 5, 2013, there was a ruling — so there is at least one precedent in this place — in response to a formal request from an honourable senator, and the Speaker ruled on the possibility of splitting government motion 5 for the purposes of voting. In doing so, the Speaker affirmed that there is a practice in parliamentary procedure allowing the separation of a complicated question, for the purpose of a vote, on different elements of the motion. This is done to better capture the sense of the House, but can only be done if the motion contains two or more distinct propositions that would, if decided separately, be coherent.
In that case, the speaker exercised authority under rule 1-1(2) of the Rules of the Senate, which allows recourse to the practices of other parliamentary chambers. I, therefore, respectfully ask the Speaker to consider whether it would be procedurally permissible under the Speaker’s inherent authority to interpret and safeguard the fairness of Senate proceedings to allow the vote at third reading to be divided into two questions corresponding to the bill’s distinct components: Part 1 and Part 2.
This is not a request to divide the bill itself nor to amend or delay the legislative process. It is a request to ensure that each part of this complex proposal receives a clear and unambiguous expression of the will of this chamber.
Colleagues, I don’t think this qualifies as a point of order. It may be more appropriate to address the bill in the manner that Senator McPhedran has suggested as a motion at third reading, but I don’t think it qualifies as a point of order.
I don’t want to enter into the nuts and bolts of the point of order. Like Senator Wells, I don’t think it’s a point of order, Your Honour, because we’re still at the outset of second reading. We’re not actually at the stage of voting. It is premature to call a point of order on a vote that hasn’t occurred yet.
I rise on the point of order. I submit that this is not a proper procedural course of action.
Under the terms of the programming motion adopted by the Senate on June 12, 2025, the possibility of the bill being referred to a standing committee is excluded. As the programming motion adopted by the full Senate states, “. . . no motion to refer the bill to committee be received . . .” and it later states:
. . . except as provided in points 14 and 15, if the bill is adopted at second reading, it be placed on the Orders of the Day for third reading at the next sitting of the Senate . . . .
As it was established by the fifth report by the Standing Senate Committee on Rules, Procedures and the Rights of Parliament, which the Senate adopted on April 6, 2017, and was noted in a ruling by Speaker Furey on June 15, 2017, specific procedures must be followed when proposing that a bill be divided.
This point of order has taken me by surprise, so please indulge me in gathering my thoughts. There are no rules in the Senate — as I understand it — for dividing bills. There are different rules in the House of Commons, as the point of order properly underlined.
Moreover, this Senate, which is the master of its procedures, has adopted a motion which provides for the bill to receive one final vote no later than 5:15 p.m. on June 27. For several reasons then, this is not the appropriate procedural path to take. I would oppose this point of order and suggest that it is, in itself, out of order.
I’d like to thank the senator for bringing this question to the floor, and I will certainly take this into consideration. Thank you as well to our colleagues who intervened.
I will take the matter under advisement and get back to you shortly.
