Quebec.

AuthorBolduc, Nicole
PositionASSEMBLEE NATIONAL

On February 21, after two weeks had been spent considering the Government's 2013-2014 budgetary estimates, Bill 19, Appropriation Act No. 1, 2013-2014, introduced by the Minister responsible for Government Administration and Chair of the Conseil du tresor, Stephane Bedard, was passed on the following vote: yeas: 52, nays: 51, no abstentions.

Directives from the Chair

On February 12, the President of the National Assembly, Jacques Chagnon gave a directive in reply to the House Leader of the Second Opposition Group, Gerard Deltell, who had asked the Chair to make a ruling establishing a reasonable time period in which Ministers were required to send the Members the documents allowing them to prepare for the examination of the budgetary estimates. The Chair believed that a reasonable period of time was indeed required to enable Members to effectively exercise their role as overseers of the Government's actions. However, parliamentary jurisprudence indicates that the Chair does not have the authority to impose such a period. The Chair observed that the documents are transmitted under a non-binding agreement between House leaders, and invited the House Leader of the Second Opposition Group to initiate discussions with his counterparts to find ways of improving the process surrounding the transmittal of those documents.

Following the Assembly's adoption on February 12 of a motion without notice demanding that the Government abandon the budget cutbacks imposed on universities at the end of the fiscal year, the House Leader of the Second Opposition Group raised a point of order concerning the nature of the motion, asking whether it constituted an order or a resolution. The Chair gave a directive on February 13 in which it pointed out that, since 1973, jurisprudence had consistently recognized the separation of the powers of the State between the executive and legislative branches. In addition, the Assembly may only give an order within the scope of its prerogatives and authority.

Jurisprudence has always considered that a motion calling for the Government to act in a specific manner in an area falling within the exclusive jurisdiction of the executive power imposes a strictly political or moral constraint and that, in such a context, as in the case in point, the Assembly is expressing a wish rather than an order.

On a question by the Government House Leader concerning the summoning of a Member who is a former Minister to appear in committee, the...

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