Ontario.

• Author: Lim, Valerie Quioc
• Position: Legislative Reports

After a busy winter adjournment for its committees, the Ontario Legislature resumed its Second Session of the Fortieth Parliament. Speaker Dave Levac made a number of rulings during the period of February to April 2014, some of which are outlined below.

Speaker's Rulings

On February 25, the Speaker ruled on a point of privilege raised by Gilles Bisson, Member for Timmins-James Bay, regarding a request by Todd Smith, Member for Prince Edward-Hastings for unanimous consent to have his just-introduced bill immediately called for Second and Third Reading. Mr. Bisson noted that Mr. Smith, having not received the unanimous consent requested, issued an open letter saying that a member or members of the Third Party, of which Mr. Bisson is the House Leader, said "no" to the request. Mr. Bisson asserted that his caucus was in favour of the request and therefore would not have said no, while Mr. Smith said that it was his honest belief that there were "noes" from the Third Party.

The Speaker ruled that a prima facie case of privilege was not made out. The ayes or nays on a request for unanimous consent are not recorded; thus there was no record of which members might have declined consent. The Speaker stated that it is therefore: dangerous to make allegations about requests for unanimous consent, and even more so to attribute motive for the perceived refusal, since by their nature requests for unanimous consent are handled without debate and therefore without any opportunity for a member to state a position for or against.

The Speaker delivered another ruling on March 3, this time relating to provincial legislation that provides for Members representing areas in eastern or southwestern Ontario to be given the opportunity to participate in public announcements relating to financial assistance or incentives affecting the area. The Member for Elgin-Middlesex-London, Jeff Yurek, gave notice of his intention to raise a point of privilege that such a public announcement was made in his riding but that he was given no notice or opportunity to participate.

The Speaker ruled that the application of privilege is "confined to proceedings in parliament, and to the activities of members in their parliamentary roles." Because this issue concerned constituency-related work, the Speaker could not find a prima facie case of privilege. Even though the Speaker found that privilege was not breached, he noted that "complying with the law is always a good policy."

On March...