SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 290 - Mar/18/24

The Deputy Speaker

Mar/18/24 7:29:33 p.m.
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I am going to pause for a couple of minutes to look at this appropriately.

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The Deputy Speaker

Mar/18/24 8:10:10 p.m.
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We will hear from a few more people on the point of order. The hon. opposition House leader.

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Hon. Andrew Scheer

Mar/18/24 8:10:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I understand that, in the moment, you might have made a ruling. It is common for Chair occupants to do this, before necessarily hearing arguments, when it is expected to be of a routine nature. However, as many Chair occupants have had to deal with in the past, when parties raise substantive objections after an initial ruling, the Speaker can go back and take a look at it in light of the objections raised. In that spirit, I hope that you, Mr. Speaker, will seriously consider the points that I am about to raise. First, we should talk about how we got here. Normally, under the motion that was adopted to guide votes in the House, there is a provision that any recorded division that is demanded is deferred until the next sitting day. First and foremost, that would be the normal course of events. Today is the allotted day for the NDP. If that happened normally, at the end of the day, the Speaker would interrupt and defer the vote until the next day. All members would have the opportunity to study the main motion and any amendments that were received. That is not happening today for a very particular reason: On the sitting day prior to the two-week constituency break, all parties agreed to not sit on the Friday after the passing of the Right Honourable Brian Mulroney, former prime minister of Canada. In order to facilitate the respect being given to former prime minister Mulroney, all parties agreed to a couple of things. The NDP agreed to have their opposition day today, Monday, instead of the Friday before that break period. In exchange for that, Conservatives agreed to a motion that would require the vote to be held at the end of the day. That was a good faith measure in order to accommodate the spirit of all MPs who were paying tribute to a deceased prime minister. That was granted. Now we find ourselves, today, literally at the eleventh hour of the debate, with a massive change to the motion. We are not just talking about a slight amendment to a coming into force date or tweaking a number here or there. We are talking about 14 substantive amendments to the main motion. Many of these rise to the level of what I would urge you, Mr. Speaker, to rule out of scope. They rise to the level of having the same effect as defeating the motion itself. House of Commons Procedure and Practice is very clear on this, saying that to have such a substantive amendment that it completely changes the nature of the original motion is out of order. The proper way of dealing with a motion that is unacceptable to a member of Parliament is to vote against it. If there is a small adjustment that could be made to accommodate one group, one desire or one perspective or another, that is one thing. This happens all the time. There are amendments moved at committees and on the floor. However, the jurisprudence from the Speaker on altering the main motion so dramatically is very clear. Rather than seeking to amend that motion, the proper course of action is for MPs to vote against the motion, defeat it and come back with a substantive motion that would incorporate the changes that any member was seeking. As I go through the list, the first one is so glaring. The original motion calls on the Government of Canada to unilaterally recognize the state of Palestine. The amendment is so different, and it is not just my view. I think any fair reading of the motion would say that this has the effect of negating the original motion. Amendment (m) seeks to replace paragraph (h) with the following: “reaffirm that settlements are illegal under international law and that settlements and settler violence are serious obstacles to a negotiated two-state solution, and advocate for an end to the decades long occupation of Palestinian territories”. That is substantially different from unilaterally recognizing the state of Palestine. Amendment (n) seeks to replace paragraph (i) with the following: “work with international partners to actively pursue the goal of a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East, including towards the establishment of the State of Palestine as part of a negotiated two-state solution”. That is so different. The original motion just says that Canada would recognize the state of Palestine. The amended motion says that it would work toward achieving that goal, work toward a negotiated two-state solution, which by the way is the long-standing position of previous governments. That change is no mere grammatical or semantic change. It is the crux of what is being debated today. It is a major point in the debate that has been carried all day today, so to bring that amendment forward in the form of a last-minute amendment to the main motion rises to the level of being so out of scope and so fundamentally altering the nature of the main motion that it should be ruled out of order. I could go on and on. There was no notice of this. We, in the opposition, negotiated in good faith before the break week to accommodate the NDP supply day. We agreed to hold the vote at the end of the day. Normally, this vote would have happened tomorrow. At the very least, there should have been some kind of notice. I believe this calls for the Speaker to rule this amendment out of order, or at the very least, to use the power of the Chair to defer the vote until tomorrow, where in so doing all MPs would have time to absorb these massive changes and vote on them. In essence, give members of Parliament the time they would have had if the normal course of the parliamentary calendar unfolded with supply days and deferred votes. I strongly object to this amendment being ruled in order. I urge the Speaker to reconsider this in light of the precedents I cited and the aspects of the amendment that contradict in such a direct way the essence of the main motion. At the very least, and I do not want to give the Speaker an alternative to what I just suggested because that is the main thrust of the argument, use the power the Speaker has to so order the flow of business to defer the vote until tomorrow, after which MPs will have had the time to examine exactly what is before them.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux

Mar/18/24 8:17:57 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, first and foremost, I think it is important that we recognize that it was on March 1 that the House made an order indicating that we would be having the vote today at 7:15 p.m., an hour ago. Every member understood before the recess that the vote would be taking place this evening. The other issue I have is this: Take a look at the purpose of opposition days and at the process we have witnessed today. There is no new element being introduced to the motion, and I will expand on that right away. What is important is to recognize the process that has gotten us to this point. The NDP introduced a motion. There was a great deal of debate on it. There were all sorts of crossover discussions taking place, and at the end of the day, the government House leader moved an amendment. That amendment, which is completely within scope, was accepted by the member for Edmonton Strathcona. The Speaker reread the amendment and then ruled that it was, in fact, in order, as has been done previously on many different opposition days. I take exception when members opposite try to give the false impression that it is out of scope. Let me give a very specific example. When they stood on the point of order to try to filibuster a vote, they made reference to the fact that the Gaza issue is a very important aspect of the amendment. Let us go to what the motion actually says about Gaza and ask how they could imply that the amendment would in any way be out of scope. I would refer people to part (viii): “the forcible transfer and violent attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank have significantly increased in recent months”. How could they say that an amendment dealing with the West Bank is, in fact, out of scope, when it is actually in the motion that has been presented? We can go further, to part (g): “ban extremist settlers”. Again, how could we not identify that this is also a part of Gaza? I go to part (h): “advocate for an end to the decades-long occupation of Palestinian territories and work toward a two-state solution”. I would argue against the very premise. After the Speaker agreed everything was in order, and the vote was just about to occur, a member stood up and brought up an issue, saying that the amendment is not within scope. In fact it is, and Gaza is actually mentioned, if members had listened to the Minister of Foreign Affairs when she made her presentation to the House, and to where other members even make reference to both Gaza and the West Bank. I would suggest not only that it is within the scope but also that we have an order from March 1 saying that the vote should occur today at 7:15 p.m. I would suggest that we get on with it and vote.

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The Deputy Speaker

Mar/18/24 8:21:55 p.m.
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A number of people want to get up about this, and I want to ask all of them to be very judicious and very short in their questions with respect to the point of order before us.

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Hon. Michelle Rempel Garner

Mar/18/24 8:22:12 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have three points. First of all, to add to the point of order that has been made about decorum, the reality is that what happened here on a major issue of foreign policy is that the Liberals came in with a substantive amendment that would change seven out of nine components of the original motion, including changing the unilateral recognition of Palestine to something else, on the back of a napkin, and told the NDP what to do. Point two is that anybody voting by app tonight will not have had a chance to see this, so there are going to be people at home who will not have seen it. The last component is language. This is one of the most substantive amendments that has been tabled in the House on a major point of foreign policy. Our peer nations are watching this. They are going to think this Parliament is a complete joke, because the government is coming in at the end and table-dropping the motion and expecting Parliament to vote on it. This sends a poor message to our peer nations, and the amendment should be ruled out of order.

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The Deputy Speaker

Mar/18/24 8:23:20 p.m.
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We have a few more comments; keep them very short.

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Mr. James Bezan

Mar/18/24 8:23:26 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will just refer to Chapter 12 of our procedure book by Bosc and Gagnon, the 2017 edition, which says, “An amendment is out of order, procedurally, if...it is completely contrary to the main motion and would produce the same result as the defeat of the main motion”. I draw your attention again to the original motion in paragraph (i), which is on the official recognition of the state of Palestine, and then go to what the amendment says. I will go back to the very last part of paragraph (n), which says, “maintain Canada's position that Israel has a right to exist”. Defeating the original motion, the motion that was debated all day long in the House, would have our position go back to what is the official position of the Government of Canada and has been for the last couple of decades. The amendment is out of order procedurally and should be ruled as such by you as Chair.

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Mr. Adam Chambers

Mar/18/24 8:24:34 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am new in this place, but my colleague mentioned that the NDP member consented to the amendment, as if that had any kind of relevancy. It is the same member who on multiple occasions has said that a private member's accepting an amendment that has been ruled out of order is irrelevant in that circumstance. He will have to tell me how it makes sense in that case and not in this one.

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The Deputy Speaker

Mar/18/24 8:24:59 p.m.
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I wish it were within my power to hold the vote tomorrow, because I do recognize that it is a substantive change to the motion. However, it is not within my power, because there has been a motion in the House, so I am ordered to have the vote immediately unless someone wants to ask for unanimous consent to have a vote tomorrow at a specific time.

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Hon. Andrew Scheer

Mar/18/24 8:25:42 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, given what you have just said, and after having some discussion among members of various parties, I am sure there will be agreement to allow members to do their due diligence. If we are going to take this seriously, if we are going to show Canadians and the world that foreign policy is not done on the back of a napkin with two negotiators and without any kind of consultation, I ask for unanimous consent to defer the vote until tomorrow. Some hon. members: No.

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The Deputy Speaker

Mar/18/24 8:26:09 p.m.
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We will go to Chapter 12. This has been quoted a number of times already today: An amendment must be relevant to the motion it seeks to amend. It must not stray from the main motion but must aim to refine its meaning and intent. An amendment should take the form of a motion to: leave out certain words in order to add other words; leave out certain words; or insert or add other words to the main motion. An amendment should be so framed that, if agreed to, it will leave the main motion intelligible and internally consistent. An amendment is out of order, procedurally, if: it is irrelevant to the main motion...; it raises a question substantially the same as one which the House has decided in the same session or conflicts with an amendment already agreed to; [or] it is completely contrary to the main motion and would produce the same result as the defeat of the main motion. I do not have a lot of procedure to go with on this one.

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Hon. Andrew Scheer

Mar/18/24 8:27:23 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, you just literally referenced the point that my colleague from Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman and I made about when the amendment is so different. The original motion would call for a unilateral recognition; the revised motion would call for a negotiated one. Those are two diametrically opposed aspects of the motion. This is not a question of refining the main motion; this is a massively substantive change to the original motion that would rise to the level of defeating the main motion.

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The Deputy Speaker

Mar/18/24 8:27:56 p.m.
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Let me quote a little more: “...any part of the amendment is out of order, or it originates with the mover of the main motion.” The challenge we had here tonight is that we had a motion that was substantial, one that was agreed to by the mover of the motion, so I am not left with a lot of leeway to rule it out of order. Unfortunately, it being 8:28 p.m., it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the business of supply. The question is on the amendment. May I dispense? Some hon. members: No. [Chair read text of amendment to House] If a member participating in person wishes that the amendment be carried or carried on division, or if a member of a recognized party participating in person wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux

Mar/18/24 8:35:26 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we request a recorded division, please.

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The Deputy Speaker

Mar/18/24 8:35:30 p.m.
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Call in the members.

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Call

The Deputy Speaker

Mar/18/24 9:26:07 p.m.
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I declare the amendment carried.

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The Deputy Speaker

Mar/18/24 9:26:07 p.m.
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The next question is on the main motion, as amended. May I dispense? Some hon. members: No. [Chair read text of motion as amended to House] The Deputy Speaker: If a member participating in person wishes that the motion, as amended, be adopted or adopted on division, or if a member of a recognized party participating in person wishes to request a recorded division, I invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.

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Mr. Peter Julian

Mar/18/24 9:31:16 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, for this historic vote, we would like a recorded vote, please.

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The Deputy Speaker

Mar/18/24 9:42:39 p.m.
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I declare the motion, as amended, carried.

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