Legislative reports: House of Commons.

• Author: Charron, Bonnie

The year 2001 was a busy time at the House of Commons with 49 bills having been passed -- 21 since the beginning of September. The House passed a resolution on October 30, 2001 to change the name of the province of Newfoundland to the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The change is a bilateral Consitutional change effected by the actions of both the federal Parliament and the provincial legislature, which passed a similar resolution in 1999.

Paul Martin, Finance Minister, presented the first budget of the 37th Parliament on December 10, 2001. Debate on the budget took place prior to the Christmas adjournment on December 14, 2001, and was taken up again the first week the House returned in January.

Procedure

A number of procedural "firsts" took place at the House of Commons pursuant to recent changes to the Standing Orders based on recommendations of the Modernization Committee. On November 27, 2001, Don Boudria, the Government House Leader, moved a time allocation motion at the report and third reading stages of Bill C-36 (the Anti-Terrorism Act). The motion was agreed to after the new 30-minute question period in which the Minister of Justice answered questions justifying the motion. On November 5, the House proceeded to the deferred recorded divisions on Bill C-10, the Canada National Marine Conservation Areas Act. As the recorded divisions took place immediately following Question Period, the sitting was extended by a period of time equal to that used for the divisions in accordance with the changes to the Standing Orders. On November 1st, an emergency debate was held on softwood lumber at the request of Bloc Member Paul Crete. The debate was scheduled for 6:30 p.m. instead of the customary 8:00 p.m., again in accordance with the changes. After negotiations among the parties, the emergency debate was deferred until the following Tuesday. On Monday, January 28, 2002, the Speaker informed the House, pursuant to S.O. 39(5), that due to the government's failure to respond, 13 Questions on the Order Paper were deemed referred to various standing committees of the House. This was the first time since amendments were made to the Standing Orders that this new procedure was invoked in the House.

Privilege

On November 1, 2001, John Bryden raised a question of privilege referring to attempts by a group of Members of Parliament to set up a special ad hoc committee to examine the Access to Information Act during the summer adjournment. The...