Journals of the Senate
52 Elizabeth II, A.D. 2003, Canada
Journals of the Senate
2nd Session, 37th Parliament
Issue 87
Wednesday, October 22, 2003
1:30 p.m.
The Honourable Daniel Hays, Speaker
The Members convened were:
The Honourable Senators
Adams, Andreychuk, Angus, Atkins, Austin, Bacon, Banks, Beaudoin, Biron, Bryden, Buchanan, Callbeck, Carstairs, Chalifoux, Christensen, Cochrane, Cook, Cools, Corbin, Cordy, Day, De Bané, Di Nino, Doody, Eyton, Fairbairn, Ferretti Barth, Finnerty, Forrestall, Fraser, Furey, Gauthier, Gill, Grafstein, Graham, Gustafson, Hays, Hervieux-Payette, Hubley, Johnson, Joyal, Kenny, Kinsella, Kirby, Kolber, Kroft, LaPierre, Lapointe, Lavigne, Lawson, LeBreton, Lynch-Staunton, Maheu, Mahovlich, Massicotte, Meighen, Merchant, Milne, Moore, Nolin, Oliver, Pearson, Pépin, Phalen, Plamondon, Poulin (Charette), Poy, Prud'homme, Ringuette, Rivest, Robertson, Robichaud, Roche, Rompkey, Sibbeston, Smith, Sparrow, Spivak, Stollery, Stratton, Tkachuk, Trenholme Counsell, Watt, Wiebe
The Members in attendance to business were:
The Honourable Senators
Adams, Andreychuk, Angus, Atkins, Austin, Bacon, Banks, Beaudoin, Biron, Bryden, Buchanan, Callbeck, Carstairs, Chalifoux, *Chaput, Christensen, Cochrane, *Comeau, Cook, Cools, Corbin, Cordy, Day, De Bané, Di Nino, Doody, Eyton, Fairbairn, Ferretti Barth, Finnerty, Forrestall, Fraser, Furey, Gauthier, Gill, Grafstein, Graham, Gustafson, *Harb, Hays, Hervieux-Payette, Hubley, *Jaffer, Johnson, Joyal, Kenny, *Keon, Kinsella, Kirby, Kolber, Kroft, LaPierre, Lapointe, Lavigne, Lawson, LeBreton, *Léger, *Losier-Cool, Lynch-Staunton, Maheu, Mahovlich, Massicotte, Meighen, Merchant, Milne, Moore, *Morin, Nolin, Oliver, Pearson, Pépin, Phalen, Plamondon, Poulin (Charette), Poy, Prud'homme, Ringuette, Rivest, Robertson, Robichaud, Roche, Rompkey, Sibbeston, Smith, Sparrow, Spivak, Stollery, Stratton, Tkachuk, Trenholme Counsell, Watt, Wiebe
PRAYERS
SENATORS' STATEMENTS
Tributes
Tribute was paid to the Honourable Senator Kolber, who will retire from the Senate on January 18, 2004.
Senators' Statements
Some Honourable Senators made statements.
DAILY ROUTINE OF BUSINESS
Presentation of Reports from Standing or Special Committees
The Honourable Senator Day, Deputy Chair of the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance, presented its Ninth Report (Supplementary Estimates (A) 2003-2004).
(The Report is printed as an Appendix)
The Honourable Senator Day moved, seconded by the Honourable Senator Biron, that the Report be placed on the Orders of the Day for consideration at the next sitting.
The question being put on the motion, it was adopted.
Introduction and First Reading of Government Bills
A Message was brought from the House of Commons with a Bill C-48, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act (natural resources), to which they desire the concurrence of the Senate.
The Bill was read the first time.
The Honourable Senator Moore moved, seconded by the Honourable Senator Kroft, that the Bill be placed on the Orders of the Day for a second reading two days hence.
The question being put on the motion, it was adopted.
Notices of Motions
With leave of the Senate,
The Honourable Senator Kroft moved, seconded by the Honourable Senator Moore:
That the Standing Senate Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce have power to sit at 4:00 p.m. today, even though the Senate may then be sitting, and that Rule 95(4) be suspended in relation thereto.
The question being put on the motion, it was adopted.
Presentation of Petitions
The Honourable Senator Gauthier presented petitions:
Of Residents of the Provinces of Ontario and Quebec with respect to declaring Ottawa officially bilingual.
DEFERRED VOTE
At 3:30 p.m., pursuant to the Order adopted October 21, 2003, the Senate proceeded to the taking of the deferred standing vote on the subamendment of the Honourable Senator Di Nino to the motion in amendment of the Honourable Senator Beaudoin to the motion of the Honourable Senator Day, seconded by the Honourable Senator Harb, for the third reading of Bill C-25, An Act to modernize employment and labour relations in the public service and to amend the Financial Administration Act and the Canadian Centre for Management Development Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts.
The question was put on the subamendment of the Honourable Senator Di Nino, seconded by the Honourable Senator Nolin, that the motion in amendment be amended
(a) by replacing the words "on page 126, by replacing lines 8 to 12'' with the following:
"(a) on page 126, by replacing lines 8 to 11'';
(b) by adding after the words "free from political influence'' the following:
"and bureaucratic patronage''; and
(c) by replacing the words "of the Commission. (2) An appointment is made on the basis of individual'' with the following:
"of the Commission.''; and
(b) on page 127, by adding after line 9 the following:
"(3) The qualifications referred to in paragraph 30(2)(a) and subparagraph 30(2)(b)(i), and any qualification standards referred to in subsection (1), that are established for an appointment in respect of a particular position or class of positions shall apply to future appointments in respect of that position or class of positions, unless any change established by the deputy head or employer to the qualifications or qualification standards, as the case may be, is approved by the Public Service Commission.''.
The subamendment was negatived on the following vote:
YEAS
The Honourable Senators
Andreychuk, Atkins, Beaudoin, Buchanan, Cochrane, Di Nino, Doody, Forrestall, Gustafson, Johnson, Lawson, LeBreton, Lynch-Staunton, Meighen, Nolin, Oliver, Prud'homme, Robertson, Roche, Spivak, Stratton, Tkachuk—22
NAYS
The Honourable Senators
Adams, Bacon, Banks, Biron, Bryden, Callbeck, Carstairs, Chalifoux, Christensen, Cook, Cools, Corbin, Cordy, Day, De Bané, Fairbairn, Ferretti Barth, Finnerty, Fraser, Furey, Gauthier, Gill, Grafstein, Graham, Hervieux-Payette, Hubley, Joyal, Kenny, Kirby, Kolber, Kroft, LaPierre, Lapointe, Lavigne, Maheu, Massicotte, Merchant, Milne, Moore, Pearson, Pépin, Phalen, Plamondon, Poulin, Poy, Ringuette, Robichaud, Rompkey, Sibbeston, Smith, Sparrow, Stollery, Watt—53
ABSTENTIONS
The Honourable Senators
Nil
________________________________________________________
Ordered, That all Senate Committees scheduled to sit today have power to sit while the Senate is sitting, and that Rule 95(4) be suspended in relation thereto.
________________________________________________________
With leave,
The Senate reverted to Tabling of Reports from Inter-Parliamentary Delegations.
The Honourable Senator Grafstein tabled the following:
Report of the Canadian Delegation of the Canada-Europe Parliamentary Association concerning its participation at the Twelfth Annual Session of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly, held in Rotterdam, Netherlands, from July 5 to 9, 2003.—Sessional Paper No. 2/37-746.
ORDERS OF THE DAY
GOVERNMENT BUSINESS
Bills
Order No. 1 was called and postponed until the next sitting.
Resuming debate on the motion of the Honourable Senator Day, seconded by the Honourable Senator Harb, for the third reading of Bill C-25, An Act to modernize employment and labour relations in the public service and to amend the Financial Administration Act and the Canadian Centre for Management Development Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts,
And on the motion in amendment of the Honourable Senator Beaudoin, seconded by the Honourable Senator Comeau, that the Bill be not now read a third time but that it be amended in clause 12, on page 126, by replacing lines 8 to 12 with the following:
"30. (1) Appointments by the Commission to or from within the public service shall be free from political influence and shall be made on the basis of merit by competition or by such other process of personnel selection designed to establish the relative merit of candidates as the Commission considers is in the best interests of the public service.
(1.1) Despite subsection (1), an appointment may be made on the basis of individual merit in the circumstances prescribed by the regulations of the Commission.
(2) An appointment is made on the basis of individual''.
The question was put on the motion in amendment.
With leave of the Senate, a standing vote was deferred until 3:30 p.m. tomorrow, with the bells to sound at 3:00 p.m. for thirty minutes.
Resuming debate on the motion of the Honourable Senator Carstairs, P.C., seconded by the Honourable Senator Graham, P.C., for the second reading of Bill C-34, An Act to amend the Parliament of Canada Act (Ethics Commissioner and Senate Ethics Officer) and other Acts in consequence.
After debate,
The Honourable Senator Stratton for the Honourable Senator Beaudoin moved, seconded by the Honourable Senator Atkins, that further debate on the motion be adjourned until the next sitting.
The question being put on the motion, it was adopted.
The Order was called for the second reading of Bill C-41, An Act to amend certain Acts.
SPEAKER'S RULING
Yesterday, when Bill C-41 was called to begin second reading debate, Senator Lynch-Staunton promptly rose on a point of order to challenge the procedural acceptability of the bill in its current form.
The basis of the Senator's challenge, as he explained it, has to do with the bill's title which he claimed was inadequate. Citing various Canadian and British parliamentary and legal authorities, the Leader of the Opposition maintained that the current long title of Bill C-41, An Act to amend certain Acts, is defective because it is not sufficiently descriptive to cover all that the bill actually seeks to accomplish. As the Senator stated: "The language used in the long title of this bill does not give anyone any sense of what is being amended or corrected.'' Equally problematic, according to the Senator, is the fact that the bill proposes to amend a regulation and that it also has attached to it a royal recommendation signifying the authorization of expenditures from the Consolidated Revenue Fund. Given this situation, the only appropriate course, in Senator Lynch-Staunton's view, is to withdraw the bill and introduce a new one with a more accurate long title.
By way of reply, Senator Carstairs maintained that the title of Bill C-41 was indeed sufficient and that its table of provisions makes it clear which Acts the bill purports to amend. The Leader of the Government also referred to previous bills similar in nature to this one which had titles that did not indicate all the miscellaneous statutes they were amending. The Senator concluded by stating that "there is no authority ... for the assertion that the title must be relevant to each and every clause ... and there is no authority to sustain ... the alleged point of order.'' In a subsequent intervention, Senator Carstairs cited as a relevant precedent a bill considered in the previous session, Bill C-40, which, as the Senator explained, amended or repealed 37 statutes, none of which were mentioned in the title of the bill which was "An Act to correct certain anomalies, inconsistencies and errors and to deal with other matters of a non- controversial and uncomplicated nature in the Statutes of Canada and to repeal certain provisions that have expired, lapsed or otherwise ceased to have effect.''
Senator Cools also participated in the exchanges on the point of order to generally support the position taken by Senator Lynch-Staunton.
I wish to thank the Honourable Senators who spoke to this point of order. I have taken the time to review Bill C-41 and to consider the arguments, precedents and authorities that were mentioned. I am now prepared to make my ruling. In doing so, I am particularly conscious of the need to avoid delving into any questions of law that are beyond the scope of my authority as Speaker. Nonetheless, I have had to look into elements of Bill C-41 in order to properly consider the arguments that were presented on the point of order.
Following what I understand to be established drafting conventions, Bill C-41 has two titles, a long title and a short title. The long title is An Act to amend certain Acts. The short title is the Amendments and Corrections Act, 2003. Both are meant to be descriptive of the purpose of the bill. In recent years, the length of the long and short titles has varied and, on occasion, we have in fact seen bills where the short title was actually longer and more descriptive than the long title. While it is admitted that a title is important with respect to determining the scope of a bill and the amendments that can be proposed with respect to it, this can be somewhat less important in the case of amending bills intended to correct a battery of statutes. This is because amending bills do not have the same integrity as a bill that constitutes an original Act. Once enacted, the content of an amending bill is absorbed into the various Acts to which it applies. The amending bill, as an Act, has no independent existence. Its title, therefore, has a limited value.
According to the authorities cited by Senator Lynch-Staunton, the long title should set out in general terms the purpose of the bill and it should cover everything in the bill. The Senator argues that with respect to Bill C-41, the long title fails to meet this requirement and is, therefore, procedurally defective. Whatever the merits of this claim, I am not certain that I have the authority as Speaker to rule the bill out of order on this basis. I say this for several reasons. It is agreed that the general purpose of the bill is to amend certain Acts. In this case, the question seems to be how specific the general terms must be. Given the uneven practice of long and short titles, particularly with respect to these omnibus amending bills, I do not feel that I can make that determination.
In addition, the remedy of withdrawing a bill belongs to the Senate rather than to me as Speaker. In this instance, however, we are dealing with a House of Commons bill, not a Senate bill. We cannot overlook the fact that this bill that has already been debated and passed in the House of Commons. As Senator Lynch-Staunton has acknowledged, it is possible to amend the bill in its title, if the Senate determines that this is appropriate. Furthermore, as Senator Carstairs pointed out, Bill C-41 has a detailed Table of Provisions, which constitutes a list of all the Acts being affected by the bill. It may be that this Table will be a feature for this kind of legislation to make up for any descriptive inadequacies of a bill's title. In any case, I do not think that this feature can be ignored.
Senator Lynch-Staunton raised two other issues in addition to the problem of the title in presenting his point of order. Though I do not believe they are determinative, I do feel it is appropriate to address them in this case. The first issue is the matter of the royal recommendation that has been attached to the bill. In my review of the bill, I can point to at least one explanation for it. Clause 20 of the bill seeks to replace the position of the Executive Director of the Round Table on the Environment and the Economy with a President. Clauses 21 and 22 provide for remuneration and expenses of this replacement position which requires a royal recommendation since the funds previously paid to the Executive Director and now allocated to the President are public monies.
Senator Lynch-Staunton also mentioned the fact Bill C-41 amends some regulations. What clause 28 does is to change the effective date of the regulation's enforcement. The bill proposes to set the regulation's effective date back from January 2003 to April 1998. There is another provision in the bill, clause 24.1, that does the same thing with respect to a regulation under the Parliament of Canada Act. The regulations per se are not being changed, only their coming into force date. This kind of change cannot be done by regulation; it must be done by statute.
For these reasons, it is my ruling that the point of order is not well founded and it is no impediment for moving the motion for second reading of Bill C-41.
Second reading of Bill C-41, An Act to amend certain Acts.
A Point of Order was raised as to the acceptability of the Bill.
After debate,
The Speaker reserved his decision.
Order No. 5 was called and postponed until the next sitting.
Second reading of Bill C-37, An Act to amend the Canadian Forces Superannuation Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts.
The Honourable Senator Wiebe moved, seconded by the Honourable Senator Maheu, that the Bill be read the second time.
After debate,
The Honourable Senator Atkins moved, seconded by the Honourable Senator Stratton, that further debate on the motion be adjourned until the next sitting.
The question being put on the motion, it was adopted.
Reports of Committees
Order No. 1 was called and postponed until the next sitting.
________________________________________________________
Ordered, That Order No. 1 under OTHER BUSINESS, Commons Public Bills be brought forward.
Resuming debate on the motion of the Honourable Senator Stollery, seconded by the Honourable Senator Cools, for the second reading of Bill C-212, An Act respecting user fees.
After debate,
The question being put on the motion, it was adopted on division.
The Bill was then read the second time, on division.
The Honourable Senator Day moved, seconded by the Honourable Senator Christensen, that the Bill be referred to the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance.
The question being put on the motion, it was adopted.
________________________________________________________
Ordered, That all remaining Orders be postponed until the next sitting.
REPORTS DEPOSITED WITH THE CLERK OF THE SENATE PURSUANT TO RULE 28(2):
Report of the Canadian Intellectual Property Office, together with the Auditors' Report, for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2003, pursuant to the Patent Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. P-4, s. 26. —Sessional Paper No. 2/37-743.
Reports of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2003, pursuant to the Access to Information Act and to the Privacy Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. A-1 and P-21, sbs. 72(2).—Sessional Paper No. 2/37-744.
Report of the Business Development Bank of Canada, together with the Auditor General's Report, for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2003, pursuant to the Financial Administration Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. F-11, sbs. 150(1).—Sessional Paper No. 2/37-745.
ADJOURNMENT
The Honourable Senator Robichaud, P.C., moved, seconded by the Honourable Senator Carstairs, P.C.:
That the Senate do now adjourn.
The question being put on the motion, it was adopted.
(Accordingly, at 5:12 p.m. the Senate was continued until 1:30 p.m. tomorrow.)
________________________________________________________
Changes in Membership of Committees Pursuant to Rule 85(4)
Standing Committee on Rules, Procedures and the Rights of Parliament
The name of the Honourable Senator Fraser substituted for that of the Honourable Senator Massicotte (October 21).