By Denis Carmel
OTTAWA – After the adoption of a time allocation motion for report stage and third reading of Bill C-10 passed in the House of Commons on Monday afternoon the Conservatives, on a point of order, argued the amendments which were “deemed” in the Committee, shouldn’t actually count, even though they voted on them.
The Conservatives argued the inclusion of the amendments which were introduced after the five hours of time allocated to stop committee debate – and were voted on by number only and not discussed, was against the wording of the time allocation motion adopted by the House of Commons.
The Speaker took the point in advisement yesterday and said he would come back with a ruling before the vote. The debate on report stage ran until past 12:30 a.m. Tuesday morning without a vote. (yawn!)
On Tuesday afternoon, the Speaker agreed with the Conservatives’ argument and declared the amendments adopted by the Committee after the five hours of allotted time under the allocation motion are null and void and the Committee should have only voted on the original Bill C-10, with amendments discussed and voted on prior to the time allocation limit.
In his ruling, the Speaker ordered the reprinting of the amended bill so that report stage could resume on this new text at some point this week, probably tomorrow. Update: The HoC ran out of time Wednesday, talking about the federal budget and other things well after midnight. C-10 should come up for debate, again, Thursday.
He indicated the place to introduce any new amendments would now be at third reading stage.
It is unclear right now when the next steps will take place and how the House will allocate time for the amendments introduced at that stage. Likely, they will only deal with the amendments adopted in committee which have now been nullified (around 40 or so were voted on and about 10 adopted, we’re not certain on the actual number at the moment), but this will require some additional time.
Then it will be sent to the Senate where it will (probably) die, since both houses go on summer break June 23rd and everyone in Ottawa is gearing up for a federal election in the fall.
This is another setback showing the haphazard way this legislation has been managed.
