Amendments to the Content of Bills / Committee Stage

Amendments infringing on financial initiative of the Crown

Journals pp. 467-9

Debates pp. 5115-7

Background

On April 22, as the report stage consideration of Bill C-44, an Act to amend the Senate and House of Commons Act, the Salaries Act and the Parliamentary Secretaries Act, was about to begin, Mr. Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre) raised a point of order to challenge the action of the Standing Committee on Miscellaneous Estimates in adopting certain amendments. He claimed that these amendments went beyond the terms of the Royal Recommendation. Mr. Knowles recommended that the Chair "should instruct that the bill be referred back to the committee so that the committee may make any amendments it wishes in accordance with the rules". Mr. Sharp (President of the Privy Council) maintained that "the question of whether the bill is in order cannot be decided at this juncture because there are, in fact, six notices of amendments" on the Order Paper. "This indicates", he explained, "that the House will eventually be asked to concur in and pass the bill, maybe in a different form."

Issue

Can a committee adopt amendments to a legislative measure which exceed its Royal Recommendation? Can the Chair send the bill back to a committee? Can the bill be allowed to proceed?

Decision

A committee does not have the authority to adopt amendments which exceed the terms of the Royal Recommendation. The Speaker cannot return a bill to a committee on his own authority. Any decision to do so must be made by the House. The bill will be allowed to proceed, but only after the procedurally unacceptable amendments have been stripped from the bill.

Reasons given by the Speaker

"No amendment can exceed the terms of [a Royal Recommendation] regardless of by whom it is moved, and no action taken by the House, by any Member of the House, by any standing committee, and least of all by the Chair, must in any way weaken that very basic and fundamental principle of our practice."

The Chair has no authority to send a bill back to a committee. That is a decision of the House which can be considered at the third reading stage.

References

Debates, April 22, 1975, pp. 5072-8.