Speaker's Ruling – Point of Order by Senator Lankin on amendment to Bill C-6
Honourable senators, I am ready to deal with the point of order raised yesterday by Senator Lankin in relation to the amendment of Senator Frum to Bill C-6, as amended. The point of order questioned whether the amendment violates the rules and practices governing the receivability of amendments and, as such, should not be considered by the Senate.
Senator Lankin was concerned that the amendment fundamentally undermines the basic principle of the bill, which she characterized as being to facilitate access to citizenship. Senator Lankin cited a range of procedural authorities and precedents in making her argument. I thank her for this very useful review.
Several other senators also participated in debate on the point of order. Among them was Senator Carignan, who expressed concern about adopting an excessively rigid approach when dealing with amendments.
It is a basic tenet of parliamentary practice that an amendment must respect the principle and scope of a bill, and must be relevant to it. A ruling of December 9, 2009, cited by Senator Lankin, noted that:
It may generally be helpful to view the principle as the intention underlying a bill. The scope of the bill would then be related to the parameters the bill sets in reaching any goals or objectives that it contains, or the general mechanisms it envisions to fulfil its intentions. Finally, relevancy takes into account how an amendment relates to the scope or principle of the bill under examination.
Amendments must, therefore, be in some way related to the bill and cannot introduce elements or factors alien to the proposed legislation or destructive of its original goals. In addition, amendments must respect the objectives of the bill. In considering these issues, it may be necessary to identify the fundamental policy and goals behind a bill. Factors such as the long title of the bill, its content and the debate at second reading may be taken into account. Debate at second reading is particularly relevant since, according to rule 10-4, “The principle of a bill is usually debated on second reading.” However, as acknowledged in previous rulings, it is often difficult to identify the principle.
There is another element, not directly raised during the point of order, which must also be taken into account. As noted in a ruling of April 16, 2013, several Speakers “have expressed a preference of presuming a matter to be in order, unless and until the contrary position is established.” This approach is in keeping with the role of the Senate as a debating chamber, where legislation and policy issues are subject to vigorous discussion, and to the consideration of possible alternatives. As a result, unless an item of business, such as an amendment, is clearly out of order, debate should be allowed to proceed.
Debate on second reading of Bill C-6 included the following statement by the sponsor: “This bill finds a more appropriate balance between fulfilling reasonable requirements, on the one hand, and facilitating citizenship, on the other, because evidence shows that citizenship is a facilitator of integration.” This was in a speech identifying three basic principles of citizenship that are woven through the bill. The other principles were the equality of Canadians and program integrity.
The amendment at issue does not affect many of the changes proposed in Bill C-6. As an example, it would not affect the proposed reduction of the total length of time a person must be resident in Canada to 1,095 days during the five years immediately before the application for citizenship. The current requirement under the Citizenship Act is 1,460 days during the period of six years preceding the application. What the amendment does propose is to maintain the current requirement, which Bill C-6 would remove, that a person must be “physically present in Canada for at least 183 days during each of four calendar years that are fully or partially within the six years immediately before the date of his or her application”.
It is possible to understand this amendment as an effort to re-balance the competing aims of facilitating citizenship while maintaining reasonable requirements for becoming a Canadian citizen. Such a re-balancing of these two objectives is not clearly destructive of the basic intention underlying the bill. The reduced residency requirements in Bill C-6 would, as an example, be maintained with this amendment.
Honourable senators, it is not clearly evident that the amendment is fundamentally destructive of the original goals of Bill C-6. Taking into account the importance of allowing senators wide latitude in debate, the ruling is that the amendment is in order, and debate can continue.