19. Committees of the Whole House
There is as little sense of reality in
appointing a committee of sixty members as there is in having a Committee of the
Whole of 265: it is hopeless to expect a committee of such size to accomplish
any useful work.
W.F. Dawson
(Procedure in the Canadian House of Commons, p. 209)
A
Committee of the Whole is the entire
membership of the House of Commons sitting as a
committee. [1]
Each time
the House resolves itself into a Committee of the Whole to deliberate on a
specific matter, a new committee is created. Once that committee has completed
its business, it ceases to exist. Over the span of a session, many Committees of
the Whole can be created on an ad hoc basis.
A meeting of a Committee of the Whole is
held in the Chamber itself and presided over by the Deputy Speaker, as Chairman
of Committees of the Whole, or by the Deputy
Chairman [2]
or Assistant Deputy Chairman of Committees of the Whole. Whoever is presiding sits
at the Table, in the Clerk’s chair, while the Speaker’s chair
remains vacant; the Mace is removed from the top of the Table to signal that the
House itself is no longer in session. The Mace rests on the lower brackets at
the end of the Table during the entire time that the House sits as a Committee
of the Whole.
“The function of a Committee of the
Whole is deliberation, not
enquiry”. [3]
Unlike standing committees which have the authority to initiate studies of
continuing concern to the House, a Committee of the Whole may only consider
questions and bills which the House decides should be dealt with in that forum.
At one time, the House sat frequently as a Committee of the Whole to examine the
Estimates, [4]
appropriation bills [5]
and all taxation
bills [6] at the
committee stage. In addition, most bills that had received a second reading were
referred to a Committee of the Whole for consideration and review. Today,
although the Standing Orders still provide for a Committee of the Whole to
examine appropriation
bills [7]
and, from time
to time, by special order or unanimous consent, other bills which are referred
to a Committee of the Whole for consideration, the House spends little time
sitting as a Committee of the
Whole. [8]
Indeed, the
expeditious passage of legislation is now the predominant reason for the House
resolving into a Committee of the
Whole. [9]
Since the membership of a Committee of the
Whole is identical to that of the House, one might expect the rules in both
forums to be the same. While there are similarities, the rules in a Committee of
the Whole are less formal than those which apply when the House is in session
and the Speaker is in the Chair. For example, Members may speak more than once
on any item. [10]
This
chapter will examine the role of Committees of the Whole and discuss the rules
and practices pertaining to proceedings in a Committee of the Whole.