Questions Related to Content of Bills / Estimates

Legislative item

Journals pp. 737-8

Debates pp. 8608-9

Background

When Mr. Drury (President of the Treasury Board) moved that "Supplementary Estimates (A) for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1974 ... be concurred in", Mr. Nielsen (Yukon) rose on a point of order to claim that three votes in the Estimates were clearly legislative items "specifically [to] amend existing legislation other than Appropriation Acts", and that they could only be proceeded with by unanimous consent. After hearing procedural arguments from other Members, the Speaker ruled.

Issue

Should items of a legislative character be included in the Estimates?

Decision

No, they should not. [The House, however, subsequently gave unanimous consent to proceed with the items.]

Reasons given by the Speaker

The House should "reaffirm the proposition that such proposals, when they are clearly intended to amend existing legislation, should come to the House by way of an amending bill rather than as an item in the Supplementary Estimates". The use of dollar items in the Estimates as a means of legislation "ought not to be condoned and supported by the House". Dollar items, however, have been used to amend a previous Appropriation Act. If a justification were to be made for the use of dollar items relating to legislation, "it would have to be based on emergency rather than on principle", but the Chair, in this case, has to make a ruling on principle.

Sources cited

Journals, March 10, 1971, p. 396.

May, 18th ed., p. 731.

References

Debates, December 10, 1973, pp. 8605-8.