House Proceedings

• Author: Rob Walsh
• Pages: 59-83

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cHaPter seven

House Proceedings

Other than perhaps watching a debate, Question Period, or a recorded vote, most visitors to the House of Commons would not understand what the House was doing as they watched.
he usual proceedings in the House each day are the following: Oral Questions (Question Period), Routine Proceedings, Statements by Members, Private Members’ Business, and Orders of the Day (Government Orders). Most of the time of each sitting day and each sitting week is taken up with Government Orders, that is, business that the Government presents for approval. he weekly schedule of the House has thirty-three-and-a-half sitting hours, of which twenty-one or twenty-two hours are on Government Orders. hat two-thirds of the House’s sitting week should be on Government business is not surprising when you consider that historically the reason for a Parliament being called together was that the monarch had some business that they wanted Parliament to consider. he same applies today. he House’s primary job is to consider the legislative and iscal proposals of the Government and to hold the Government to account. his should mean that most of the House’s time is spent looking at items of Government business. It might seem fairer if the time of the House was equally divided between

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Government business and Opposition business, but in parliamentary terms this wouldn’t make sense.

Some proceedings occur only occasionally, such as the election of a Speaker, the Speech from the hrone, the introduction of Bill C-1, the Address in Reply to the Speech from the hrone, emergency debates, supply days, the annual budget presentation by the minister of inance, Speaker’s rulings, the Appropriation Bills, Ways and Means Motions (taxes), and “Take Note” debates. Also, there are those brief proceedings that can be initiated by an individual member at any time of the sitting day: points of order and points of privilege.

The Players

he principal players in House proceedings (not including the prime minister and ministers of the Government) are the members appointed by the respective party leaders as House leaders, namely, the Government House leader (not a minister), the House leader of the Oicial Opposition, and the House leaders of the other recognized parties (parties having at least twelve members). he House leaders are not to be confused with the leaders of the political parties, that is, the prime minister who is the leader of the governing party, the leader of the Oicial Opposition, and, where applicable, the leaders of any other recognized party in the House. Also, there are the members appointed by the party leaders as whips for each of the recognized parties who are responsible for managing members’ attendance in the House and at committee meetings and who handle disciplinary matters on behalf of the party leader.

Caucus

Members of the recognized parties meet privately, usually on a Wednesday, to discuss the parliamentary business of their party in the upcoming sessions of the House or any of the committees, as well as other matters of interest to them. hese gatherings are called a

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caucus. he sessions are conidential and enable the members of each caucus to sort out their views privately rather than show disagreement on the loor of the House. his is why debates in the House are usually so boring. he speeches of members in the House and in committees from each caucus are pre-determined, while disagreements between the parties are usually well known in advance. here are few surprises in House or committee proceedings.

Procedural Rules

House proceedings are conducted according to a set of procedural rules that are known as the Standing Orders of the House of Commons. hey are determined by votes of the House. hey are about as easy to understand as the Income Tax Act. Most members don’t use them directly, although more experienced members may develop some familiarity with the procedural rules. Usually House leaders who represent their parties in behind-the-scenes procedural discussions rely on staf whose job is to advise them on the procedural rules, sometimes after consultations with procedural clerks. Sorting out procedural issues can be messy.
he procedural rules can be temporarily set aside or modiied at any time if everyone agrees to do so. For example, the House can agree unanimously that a Government bill be deemed “read” a third time though it has not been debated at third reading nor approved by a vote of the House. If everyone agrees, three o’clock in the afternoon can be seen by the Speaker as six o’clock in the afternoon (end of Government Orders or end of the sitting day). In other words, the House at all times has complete and unfettered control of its own proceedings, which means anything can happen and often does. he procedural rules of the House are not legal rules that must be followed in every instance, and they are not enforceable outside the House. Where there’s a dispute, the Speaker will decide the issue once a member rises on a point of order.

A majority Government can impose changes in the procedural rules by using its majority to get an amendment to the rules adopted.

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On less contentious matters, the House leaders consult and come to an agreement on how an item of business will be handled.

The Table

he table situated directly in front of the Speaker’s chair is the clerk’s table with the clerk seated at the head with a table oicer seated on each side. he table oicers, as they are generally called, assist members and the Speaker on procedural matters arising in the course of the proceedings. Members may come to the table for information on the proceedings before the House (“When is the vote today?” or “What’s the next item that will be called?”) or to advise the table of any changes in the members scheduled for speaking on an item. he table oicers keep a record of the proceedings. Sometimes the table oicers serve as the eyes and ears of the Speaker when it is alleged that a member used unparliamentary language or made a rude gesture. On recorded votes, a table oicer calls out each member and the clerk records the vote.

Pages

Each year the House recruits approximately forty irst-year university students from across Canada to serve as pages in the Chamber. hese students are responsible for delivering messages between members in the Chamber, fetching a glass of water for a member, and a variety of other tasks designed to enable members to not need to leave their seats in the course of a proceeding. hey wear a black suit uniform and sit on benches situated at the foot of the Speaker’s chair. Whenever the Speaker stands up, the pages must also stand up. hey must keep an eye over their shoulders to catch when the Speaker is rising and sometimes they can be seen bobbing up and down like they were playing musical chairs.

In addition, there is a small group of permanent senior pages who are usually placed to the right of the Speaker’s chair and who provide to the Speaker the forms required for each item of House

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business. hese forms set out the text of the interventions that the Speaker must make to the House for procedural purposes, the sort of items that one would not expect a Speaker to be able to remember to say, or say correctly, from memory or in their own words.

Sergeant-at-Arms

At the opposite end of the Chamber from the Speaker sits the sergeant-at-arms (or the deputy) whose job is to deal with any disorderly conduct by members that occurs in the Chamber or intrusions by strangers (no persons are allowed in the Chamber except members and table oicers).

Routine Proceedings

In each sitting day, the House takes a few minutes to take care of routine matters. hese are brief matters that are better handled together than allowed to take place at diferent times of the sitting day. Routine matters include the tabling of documents by ministers; the introduction (irst reading) of Government bills, private member’s bills, and Senate public bills; statements by ministers; reports from interparliamentary delegations and from House committees, routine motions, and petitions.

Only ministers can table documents in the House. Private members can only do so with the unanimous consent of the House, which is rarely given. he rationale for this, I suppose, is that the House is always interested in receiving documentation from the Government, presumably relating to an item of Government business or some other Government action or initiative. As a rule, the House wants to receive from the Government as much information as it will provide. he House is not interested in receiving documents from private members. Besides, a member can circulate amongst other members any document that the member wants other members to see.

In Routine Proceedings, public bills, to be distinguished from private bills (bills that relate to a private matter and are irst

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introduced in the Senate), Government bills, and private member’s bills are given the irst of three “readings” though without any vote. In the case of a Government bill, the sponsoring minister must be present in the Chamber but is not expected to say anything about the bill. In the case of a private member’s bill, the sponsoring private member is given approximately one minute in which to explain what the bill is intended to do. Once public bills receive irst reading in Routine Proceedings, they are immediately posted on the parliamentary website.
he presentation of reports from House committees is an important item in Routine Proceedings. hese may be reports on an inquiry undertaken by a committee or on a public bill. he House must at report stage consider a committee’s report on a...