Written Questions

While oral questions are posed without notice on matters considered to be of an urgent nature, written questions are placed on the Order Paper after due notice, with the intent of seeking from the Ministry detailed, lengthy or technical information relating to “public affairs”.176 Forty-eight hours’ written notice is required before a question may be placed on the Order Paper.177 All questions are assigned a number when they are submitted. Members are allowed a maximum of four questions on the Order Paper at any one time.178 Members may request that the Ministry respond within 45 calendar days, generally by adding a sentence to that effect either before or after the text of the question, or by so indicating to the Clerk when submitting the question.179 A Member may also indicate that he or she wishes to receive an oral reply during Routine Proceedings; in this case, the question will be marked with a distinctive symbol when published in the Order Paper.180 Though this option is little used, questions so designated are known as “starred questions”, and Members are permitted a maximum of three starred questions out of the allowed total of four at any one time.181

Historical Perspective

Since 1867, the rules of the House of Commons have allowed for written questions to be posed to the Ministry.182 The original rule, virtually identical to today’s Standing Order 39(1), provided that questions could be asked of private Members as well as Ministers, although it appears that, from the beginning, in practice, questions were directed only to Ministers.183 That practice has continued to this day, and occasional additions to the Standing Order that deals with answers to Order Paper questions appear to assume that questions are directed to Ministers.184

The exact mechanism for the government to provide answers to written questions during the course of daily sittings of the House has varied over the years. Between 1867 and 1975, the rubric “Questions on the Order Paper” was not necessarily considered on each sitting day for two reasons. At one time, the rubric had precedence over the Orders of the Day only on certain days of the week and, on other days, the House typically never reached the rubric. At other times, the rules provided for the item to be called only on certain days of the week, such as Mondays and Wednesdays. After 1975, a rule change ensured that the House would reach this rubric daily; indeed, it was the first item of business every day following the daily routine of business and before the Orders of the Day were called.185 In June 1987, the Standing Orders were amended to add “Questions on the Order Paper” to the list of items considered during Routine Proceedings.186

Between 1867 and 1896, whenever a written question was called for consideration in the House, the Member in whose name the question stood rose and read the question, and the Minister responsible furnished a response; supplementary questions were not allowed. The exchange was printed in full in the Debates.187 Any questions called but not answered were automatically dropped from the Order Paper and had to be renewed if a Member still wanted a response.188

Beginning in 1896, reforms were made to shorten the time taken by the House to consider written questions. Written questions were assigned numbers so that Members did not have to read in full the text of the question when it was called.189 In 1906, to reduce the time taken up with reading lengthy responses in the House, a change was made to allow written questions that were likely to require lengthy responses to be transferred without debate to another section of the Order Paper as notices of motions.190 Also at this time, questions that had been called for consideration but not answered could be allowed, at the government’s request and with the consent of the Members involved, to stand and retain their place on the Order Paper instead of being automatically dropped.191 In 1910, the rules were amended to allow Ministers to have their answers appear in the Debates as if read; Members who wished to receive an oral response to a written question could do so by marking it with an asterisk. At the same time, a new rule made it possible for the government to table rather than read lengthy or detailed responses to questions. These tabled responses were called “Orders for Return”.192 In most cases, the returns were tabled immediately after the order was deemed made. These responses became sessional papers and were not printed in the Debates.

The procedure for answering written questions changed relatively little until 1963 when the process was further refined in order to allow the House to deal specifically with those questions for which the government was ready to make a public response. The new practice permitted the House to consider only those questions to be answered that day by the government, rather than forcing it to proceed through every written question on the Order Paper. Once these were dealt with, the government would request that all remaining questions be allowed to stand.193 In 1986, the House agreed to a limit of four questions on the Order Paper per Member at any one time,194 three of which could be marked with an asterisk for an oral response.195 At the same time, it codified the right of Members to request a reply to a written question within 45 calendar days of its appearance on the Order Paper.196 In 1991, the rules were again amended to allow Members whose questions had remained unanswered after 45 days to take up the matter during the Adjournment Proceedings.197 In 2001, the rules were further amended to provide for the referral of the matter of the failure of the government to respond to a written question to an appropriate standing committee, once the 45-day period had elapsed.198

Guidelines for Written Questions

In general, written questions are lengthy, often contain subsections, and seek detailed or technical information from one or more government departments or agencies. Restrictions governing the form and content of written questions arise both from the rules199 and from custom. Several traditional guidelines and conditions date back to Confederation. With time and following several Speakers’ decisions, the list of restrictions enumerated in procedural texts grew very long,200 while other restrictions became outdated or irrelevant. Aside from a 1965 Speaker’s statement indicating that some of these restrictions no longer applied, there has been no definitive analysis of which of them are still valid.201 Thus, a very large measure of responsibility for ensuring the regularity of written questions has fallen to the Clerk.

Acting on the Speaker’s behalf, the Clerk has full authority to ensure that questions placed on the Notice Paper conform to the rules and practices of the House.202 In order to do so, the Clerk applies a set of guidelines derived from the Standing Orders and from the practice of the House, similar to the guidelines used for oral questions. Thus, a question must not:

  • concern a subject matter which does not pertain to public affairs;
  • contain an expression of opinion, or request the government’s opinion;
  • supply information to the House;
  • be hypothetical;
  • request information which could be obtained through a notice of motion for the production of papers;
  • raise matters under the control of authorities not responsible to the government or Parliament;
  • seek information about matters which are in their nature secret, such as decisions or proceedings of Cabinet or advice given to the Crown by law officers; or
  • seek from a former Minister information regarding transactions which took place during that person’s term of office.203

Given that the purpose of a written question is to seek and receive a precise, detailed answer, it is incumbent on a Member submitting a written question “to ensure that it is formulated carefully enough to elicit the precise information sought”.204 Since questions must be coherent and concise, the Clerk may split a question into two or more questions if it is too broad, or if it contains unrelated subquestions.205 If there are any irregularities in a question, the Clerk advises the Member, who then has the opportunity to amend the question before it is placed on the Notice Paper.206 Written questions are reviewed by the Clerk to ensure procedural admissibility, grammatical correctness and orthography, and consistency between English and French versions. It is not the responsibility of the Clerk to assess the merit of the question or the government’s ability to respond to a question.207

Withdrawal of a Written Question

A Member may withdraw his or her written question from the Order Paper by advising the Clerk of the House in writing that he or she wishes the question to be withdrawn. A Member may also rise in the House to request that the Speaker withdraw the question.208 If a Member has questions on the Order Paper and ceases to be a Member, those questions are likewise withdrawn.209

Replies

Replies to written questions may be presented each sitting day during Routine Proceedings under the rubric “Questions on the Order Paper”.210 A Member, usually the Parliamentary Secretary to the Government House Leader, rises to announce by their numbers the questions to be answered that day;211 the text of the questions and the answers appear in that day’s Debates. At the same time, the Parliamentary Secretary provides any oral responses to starred questions.212 Normally, the Parliamentary Secretary seeks the consent of the House to deem a starred question answered orally without actually reading aloud the text of the answer,213 and the text of the question and the answer are published in the Debates.214 The Parliamentary Secretary may also seek consent to table a document in response to a question, a process known as making a reply into an Order for Return.215 This is done by the Speaker asking the House whether there is agreement to proceed in this way.216 If there is no agreement, then the government either does not proceed with the question on that day,217 or alternatively a Minister tables the answer, since a Minister does not need consent to do so. Finally, the Parliamentary Secretary requests that any remaining unanswered questions be allowed to stand and retain their place on the Order Paper. This request is routinely made and granted.218 The Speaker has indicated that, as this procedure has evolved to become an automatic proceeding, the request is not debatable.219 If no questions are to be answered that day, a representative of the Government, usually the Parliamentary Secretary to the Government House Leader, must nonetheless request that all questions be allowed to stand on the Order Paper.

The guidelines that apply to the form and content of written questions also apply to the answers provided by the government; no argument or opinion is to be given, and only the information needed to respond to the question is to be provided, in an effort to maintain the process of written questions as an exchange of information rather than an opportunity for debate.220 As with oral questions, it is acceptable for the government, in responding to a written question, to indicate to the House that it cannot supply an answer.221 On occasion, the government has supplied supplementary or revised replies to questions already answered.222 The Speaker has ruled that it is not in order to indicate in a response to a written question the total time and cost incurred by the government in the preparation of that response.223

There are no provisions in the rules for the Speaker to review government responses to questions. Nonetheless, on several occasions, Members have raised questions of privilege in the House regarding the accuracy of information contained in responses to written questions; in none of these cases was the matter found to be a prima facie breach of privilege.224 The Speaker has ruled that it is not the role of the Chair to determine whether or not the contents of documents tabled in the House are accurate, nor to “assess the likelihood of an Hon. Member knowing whether the facts contained in a document are correct”.225

Questions Not Responded to Within 45 Calendar Days

When placing questions on notice, Members usually request that the Ministry respond within 45 days, that is, within 45 calendar days of the question’s inclusion on the Order Paper.226 If a written question has not been answered within the required 45-day period,227 the failure of the government to respond to the question is deemed referred to the standing committee selected by the Member in whose name the question stands.228 The question is designated on the Order Paper as “referred to committee”. The Chair of the committee is required to convene a meeting within five sitting days; the committee may then investigate the failure of the government to respond to the written question, and report back to the House.229 However, the committee is not obliged to report back to the House, or to follow any specific procedure in considering the matter.230 On occasion, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister responsible for tabling the response has been invited to appear before a committee to explain the delay;231 departmental officials have also appeared.232 If the response to the written question has been tabled in the interim, or if the committee has been advised that the tabling is imminent, usually no further action is taken.233 The question remains on the Order Paper designated as “referred to committee”, which allows the Member to submit an additional question; however, the Member is still restricted to a maximum of four “non-designated” questions at any one time.

If the Member does not wish to have the question transferred to committee, the Member may rise in the House during Routine Proceedings under the rubric “Questions on the Order Paper” and give notice of his or her intention to have the subject matter of the question transferred to the Adjournment Proceedings.234 The question is then removed from the Order Paper, and the order for referral to a committee is dropped. This procedure also allows Members to submit an additional question for placement on the Order Paper.

While the Standing Orders do provide for the government’s failure to respond to a written question within 45 days to be referred to committee, the Ministry is nevertheless not obliged to reply within this time. Members have raised this complaint in the House on numerous occasions. In these discussions, the Chair has indicated that it has no power under the rules to order the government to produce an answer within the allotted 45 days.235

Orders for Return

In some cases, long and complex questions which require information from a number of government departments, or which would require replies too lengthy or in a format unsuitable to be published in the Debates, are made Orders for Return, that is, documents that must be provided following an order adopted by the House. Although the rule specifies that a Minister must be the one to conclude that a reply to a question should be in the form of a return and state that he or she has no objection to providing such a return,236 in practice the Parliamentary Secretary to the Government House Leader communicates that opinion to the House. The agreement of the House is requested and usually granted.237 The return is tabled and becomes a sessional paper.238 As such, it is available to all Members on request from the Clerk, but is not published in the Debates. As with replies to oral questions, the Speaker does not judge the quality or adequacy of returns provided in response to written questions; for example, it is not required that a return should answer every part of the original question.239

The rules also provide the Speaker with the authority to transform a written question into a notice of motion, if the Speaker is asked to do so by the government and believes that a question would require a lengthy reply.240 Such a notice of motion can be considered only during Private Members’ Business. However, this rule has been invoked only once,241 and in a ruling by Speaker Fraser in 1989, the Chair refused a request to transform a written question into a notice of motion. In choosing not to proceed with the government’s request, the Speaker stated that the Chair was:

unable for several reasons to comply with the terms of the Standing Order in today’s context without prejudicing the right of private Members to control fully their business by choosing for themselves how best to seek information: by placing questions on the Order Paper, perhaps requesting an answer from the Government within a 45-day period; or by having a Notice of Motion, if successful in the draw, debated during Private Members’ Business.242

The Speaker remarked that the rule, adopted by the House in 1906, had been unused for many years and, as a result, its invocation decades later would be contrary to the series of reforms concerning written questions that had been implemented since then. The Speaker suggested that the government, in responding to a written question requiring a lengthy or detailed response, might make it an Order for Return, a procedurally acceptable and widely used practice. The Chair also submitted that the government may decline to answer a written question but, at the same time, may furnish a reason for its refusal. Similarly, the government may provide a reason why the response could not be provided within 45 days.

Effect of Prorogation on Written Questions

Prorogation of a session of Parliament clears the Order Paper and cancels any requests for information contained under the rubric “Questions on the Order Paper”. Members who wish to pursue their requests for information from the Ministry must resubmit their questions in order for them to be considered in a new session.243