Ontario.

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

The 2nd Session of the 39th Parliament was prorogued on June 1, 2011, which ended the spring sitting one day earlier than set out by the parliamentary calendar. During the final month of the session, eleven government bills received Royal Assent, five of which were time allocated.

In particular, Bill 196, An Act to amend the Election Act with respect to certain electoral practices, received some procedural attention during its course in the Legislature. The bill was introduced on May 17, 2011 to amend the province's Election Act to prohibit interference with voting by providing false information and impersonation of election officials, candidates or their representatives, political party or constituency associations. The penalty for these offences was increased to a tine of up to $25,000 and/or an imprisonment terra of up to two years less a day.

On May 18, while Bill 196 sat on the Orders and Notices Paper awaiting second reading, Government notice of motion 77 was called. This motion proposed that the Legislature condemn the alleged corrupt acts that took place during the federal election and condemn acts of election fraud, such as misleading phone calls and other attempts to prevent individuals from voting in elections and confirm its resolve that electors in the upcoming provincial election should be free to cast their ballots without any such interference.

The calling of this motion prompted Peter Kormos to raise a point of order referring to the anticipation rule prescribed in Standing Order 23(e). This rule being infrequently referenced, Mr. Kormos elaborated by citing Erskine May's Parliamentary Practice (23rd edition): "Stated generally, the rule against anticipation (which applied to other proceedings as well as motions), as strictly enforced in earlier times, was that a matter must not be anticipated if it were contained in an equally or less effective form."

Mr. Kormos stated that in this case, the Government notice of motion and Bill 196 both addressed the same core issue: corrupt acts during elections. Therefore, to debate the motion was to anticipate the subject matter of the bill. He further referenced the notation in Parliamentary Practice that "a bill is a more powerful, more potent parliamentary process than is the passage of a resolution'. The former is statutory and therefore binding while the latter is not.

After recessing the House for over one hour, Speaker Steve Peters gave his ruling that the two items, though...