Arranging the Business of the House

Introduction

Since Confederation, the Standing Orders of the House have, generally speaking, provided a common, but not necessarily comprehensive, framework for the conduct of parliamentary business on a given sitting day. Members during each Parliament become accustomed to proceeding in a regular fashion and with little dissension on the order in which various items are called and are generally agreed on what proceedings then occur concerning those items of business. Many, but not all, of the items are listed in the Standing Orders and/on the Order Paper, and the Chair Occupants, on their own initiative, do not depart from the usual manner of proceeding.

Within the context of the substance and the precedence of the items being called, however, the Standing Orders and practice permit attempts, through motions moved without notice and adopted or rejected without debate in a number of cases, to effect changes to the regular manner of proceeding. If successful, this affects, understandably, the sequence of business on any given day. When contentious issues are being debated or when particular parliamentary proceedings (such as the introduction of a bill or the moving of a time allocation motion) are anticipated, the Members may attempt to affect the regular routine either by delaying or, alternatively, expediting the desired “result”. The Chair Occupants are then required to determine the admissibility of the attempt, in other words to rule on whether procedurally the manoeuvre is in order.

During Speaker Fraser’s term, he was called upon to make a number of key rulings on attempts to influence the sequence and precedence of parliamentary business, particularly with reference to events surrounding the introduction and legislative progress of Bill C-22, An Act to amend the Patent Act. On April 14, 1987, Speaker Fraser delivered a landmark ruling on the admissibility of a particular motion during Routine Business, a ruling which forms the centrepiece of this chapter. In the text of this ruling, Speaker Fraser laid before the House both his reasoning and his personal philosophy on the key issues of dilatory motions and their effect on parliamentary business.

The Speaker was called upon to make other key decisions with respect to the precedence and progress of business before the House. On two occasions, he was asked to go beyond the strictly procedural interpretation of the rules and to prevent the application of closure. On another occasion, he was tasked with determining on the narrowest of terms whether a notice of time allocation and the moving of the motion conformed with the commonly understood rules and practices. Again, with respect to the motion “That Strangers be ordered to withdraw”, he was asked to decide whether the moving of such a rarely invoked motion was in order. Other decisions in this chapter reflect on the “lapsing” of motions and the right of the Government to determine the sequence of business. Finally, a statement by Speaker Fraser is included which illustrates his reasoning for rescinding a recall of the House itself.