A Counting Conundrum: How Many Amendments?

• Date: 22 March 2021
• Author: Feldman, Charlie

There's more than one way to count amendments depending on how you define the term. In this article, the author explores a myriad of possibilities using hypothetical examples. However, he concludes by noting that counting the number of amendments is not necessarily the best metric to assess the extent of change in legislation.

When the Senate returned the government's energy legislation (Bill C-69) to the House of Commons in June 2019, media attention focused on the unprecedented number of amendments proposed by the Upper House. The only problem: Nobody quite agreed on the number.

According to the CBC, "The Senate passed an unprecedented 188 amendments". (1) For its part, The Hill Times reported there were "nearly 100 amendments from the Senate". (2) Meanwhile, the National Post stated that "The Senate passed more than 229 amendments". (3) They can't all be right ... or can they?

The reality that takes many by surprise is that there is no one way to count amendments. At least one columnist alluded to the myriad approaches by writing that "Bill C-69 is the subject of more amendments than any bill in Canadian history - ostensibly 187, but because many are multi-part, in reality upwards of 250". (4) The fully story, however, is even far more complex.

"Amendment" is an ambiguous term. In the parliamentary world, amendments are made by motion. A motion in amendment in its simplest form is a parliamentarian advancing the proposition "I move that Bill X be amended ...". A single motion in amendment, however, might have multiple elements --that is, "I move that Bill X be amended by changing thing one and changing thing two". (5) To that end, when speaking of "an amendment" is one speaking about a motion or the individual elements of a motion, of which there could be many?

Even if one has clarity about whether "amendments" refers to the number of motions moved or the number of individual elements in motions, the actual metric of "amendments" made to a bill is unlikely to yield useful information.

To illustrate some of the challenges with counting amendments, let's take a hypothetical bill establishing a tax credit for which group A is eligible. While being considered before a committee of Parliament, suppose a parliamentarian moves to add group B and another parliamentarian moves to add group C--and that both of these amendments are adopted. If the legislation were to pass in this form, the list would read that groups A, B and C are eligible. While two separate amendments--corresponding to two motions--were moved, some may suggest that only one amendment was actually made because only one thing changed in the bill: the list of eligible groups.

Imagine now that this same hypothetical bill leaves committee with groups A, B, and C eligible, but group C is struck from the bill by an amendment at a later stage of the legislative process. The motion to remove group C is also an amendment, but does it count towards the total? While the bill now reads that groups A and B are eligible--which may look like one...