SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

Member of Parliament

John Brassard

  • Member of Parliament
  • Conservative
  • Barrie—Innisfil
  • Ontario
  • Voting Attendance: 69%
  • Expenses Last Quarter: $99,360.72

  • Government Page
Context: House Hansard - 176 - Mar/30/23
Mr. John Brassard
  • Mar/30/23 7:16:18 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, on a point of order, I ask for you to be judicious in this particular speech. This is an elected member of Parliament. He has been elected by his constituents to represent them in this place, and I ask that you not allow these interruptions to occur. You have ruled that the member will be going back to the point. He has already made that clear. He is an elected member of Parliament and has every right, in spite of the fact that they stand up and interrupt him, to—
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Context: House Hansard - 32 - Feb/16/22
Mr. John Brassard (Barrie—Innisfil, CPC)
  • Feb/16/22 3:58:03 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order to seek your ruling concerning a key procedural aspect of the very important and historic debate the House will be having this week. On Monday, the Prime Minister announced that Canada was under a public order emergency, invoking the Emergencies Act for the first time in that law's existence. That will require a debate in the House to confirm the government's declaration of emergency, a debate we expect to start later this week. I wanted to rise on this point of order at the earliest opportunity to allow you as much time as possible to prepare a ruling. Subsection 58(6) of the Act requires that the motion “shall be debated without interruption until such time as the House is ready for the question”. That is a legal requirement, yet there is some difference of opinion within this building about how to give it effect. I understand there is a head of steam building up behind the view that the words “without interruption” unbelievably allows for interruptions for members' statements, question period and nightly adjournment. However, when my predecessor, now the leader of the official opposition, sought the advice of the table concerning a potential debate under a different statute, a debate that did not happen, but if it had, would also have been without interruption, the advice she received from the clerks at the table was that it would override S. O. 31s and QP, and see us sit into the night until completed. Members can appreciate that this is something that needs clarity, and quickly. The Canadian Oxford Dictionary, second edition, defines the verb “interrupt” as, “act so as to break the continuous progress of (something) temporarily”. That is in line with the advice the table gave my predecessor three years ago. To my mind, this means that nothing could or should get in the way of the debate once it has been launched, regrettably not members' statements, certainly not the evening adjournment, and definitely not the upcoming constituency week. That, I would submit, aligns with both the letter and the spirit of the Emergencies Act. The government has said this country, the whole of it, is in a state of emergency. That is a big deal. A situation so serious and grave requires a dedicated and determined focus by the Chamber on it, and I think our constituents would expect no less. We must vote on the Prime Minister's emergency. Very few of the debates the House has held have been governed by rules written into statute rather than our Standing Orders. Those debates are enumerated at pages 709 and 710 of the House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition. Of these, only four have been held under a law that required the debate to be held without interruption, according to my office's research. The first was held in November 1974 under an Act to Amend the Veterans’ Land Act. Bosc and Gagnon, at page 714, describes the second and third of these cases: Many statutes that prescribe provisions for statutory debates also stipulate that the debate may not be interrupted. Nevertheless, in 1977, debate on the motion pursuant to the Anti-Inflation Act, which took place over four days, was interrupted on three occasions for the Adjournment Proceedings, after which the motion to adjourn was deemed withdrawn and debate continued, pursuant to an Order of the House adopted on May 30, 1977. In 1985, the debate held pursuant to the Western Grain Transportation Act was interrupted for a ministerial statement by the Minister of Finance pursuant to an Order made by the House. The most recent of these without-interruption debates was held in December 1992 under the provisions of the Special Economic Measures Act. There are also key distinctions between the relevant legal provisions and the context of those four debates and our current circumstances. While subsection 1(3) of an Act to Amend the Veterans' Land Act, which governed the 1974 debate, required the debate to occur without interruption, it was also to be held “in accordance with the rules of the House”, and was to be concluded “not later than the end of the first sitting day next after the day the motion is first so taken up and considered”. The 1974 debate was meant to be subject to all of the Standing Orders of the House, along with the concept of being divided between sitting days as well as providing a cut-off for the debate. None of those three concepts is found in subsection 58(6) of the Emergencies Act. Those concepts did, however, appear in subsections 46(6) and 46(7) of the Anti-Inflation Act as amended by subsection 11(2) of an act to amend the Anti-Inflation Act, which required the 1977 debate to happen without interruption, but also that the debate was limited to four sitting days and would occur “in accordance with rules of the House”. Again, these additional concepts are missing from subsection 58(6) of the Emergencies Act. As for the 1985 debate held pursuant to subsection 62(6) of the Western Grain Transportation Act, the law actually specified that the debate would occur “For a period not exceeding the duration of the normal business hours of the House on that day”. That is rather cut and dried, and it is also different from subsection 58(6) of the Emergencies Act. Finally, the 1992 debate pursuant to subsection 7(4) of the Special Economic Measures Act was also held without interruption but, importantly, “for not more than three hours”. As I have established, there is no time limit in subsection 58(6) of the Emergencies Act. Essentially, we are left with a situation where we need to square two different sets of rules that have been adopted by the House, one being the Standing Orders and the other being the Emergencies Act. Page 267 of Bosc and Gagnon notes that: In the case of statutory provisions, the House of Commons endeavours to ensure that its Standing Orders and practices are consistent with statutes while retaining the exclusive jurisdiction to determine whether the provisions of a statute apply to its proceedings. I would respectfully argue that the distinctions between the Emergencies Act, on the one hand, and the laws under which all of the other without-interruption debates were held rendered those debates inappropriate precedents to follow to the letter. A critical maxim applied judicially in statutory interpretation cases would be instructive here. It is that “Parliament does not speak in vain”. That touchstone is elaborated upon in various entries in Sullivan on the Construction of Statutes, which is the leading Canadian authority on the interpretation of laws. I will simply offer two short quotes from the 6th edition. First is paragraph 814, which says, “Although ordinary speakers or writers require much co-operative guesswork from their audience, a legislature is an idealized speaker. Unlike the rest of us, legislatures are presumed to always say what they mean and mean what they say. They do not make mistakes.” Then there is paragraph 8.32, which I believe speaks to Parliament's use of caveats and the requirements of some debates to be held without interruption. There are no such qualifications on the requirements in the Emergencies Act. It reads, “It is presumed that the legislature uses language carefully and consistently so that within a statute or other legislative instrument, the same words have the same meaning and different words have different meanings. Another way of understanding this presumption is to say that the legislature is presumed to avoid stylistic variation and once a particular way of expressing a meaning has been adopted, it is used each time that meaning is intended. Given that practice, it follows that where a different form of expression is used, a different meaning is intended.” Page 122 of Bosc and Gagnon instructs us that, “The right to regulate its own internal affairs does not mean that the House is above the law. However, where the application of a statute law relates to a proceeding in Parliament, it is the House itself which decides how that law is applied.” In this case, I believe the path forward is that we must apply the rules set out in the Emergencies Act to this week's debate. The Standing Orders obviously can supplement all of those areas where the act is silent, such as the maximum length of speeches or how long the bells for a vote would ring, to name just two examples. Ultimately, the statutory rules that apply to this specific debate must, I would respectfully submit, trump the general provisions of the Standing Orders where there is any conflict. Nonetheless, the House's authority to interpret the law leaves it open to the House to adopt a special order through unanimous consent to structure the terms of the debate in a way that suits the House best. That was certainly the case, for example, in 1977 and 1985, when the House had adopted special orders, as I cited from page 714 of Bosc and Gagnon. I also understand that the 1992 debate was guided by a special order. That would be the correct approach to the House exercising its privileges to determine how to regulate our procedure and how to interpret the law. It would be correct for the House collectively to reach that decision. Let me stress that again: It is for the House. It would not, though, be for any single member to substitute, and certainly not for the government House leader to dictate, new interpretations of a simple phrase like “without interruption”. The Prime Minister today said that the government would follow the letter of the law. I cannot believe I am going to say this, but I agree with him. Let us follow the letter and the spirit of the law, and ensure that the House takes up this declaration of emergency debate with the urgency a supposed national emergency should naturally require. The last thing we need to do is leave here at 2:30 on a Friday for a 10-day vacation, as much as I am sure the Prime Minister would like that. Let us debate the emergency, let us air the concerns of our constituents and their views, and then let us have the vote.
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