The Senate.

• Author: Ethier, Celine
• Position: Legislative Reports

In the Chamber

This quarter was extremely busy in the Senate. Eighteen bills received Royal Assent during this period, while Bill S-5, the Tobacco and Vaping Products Act, and six Senate Public Bills were read a third time and sent to the House of Commons for study, with a response still pending.

Especially noteworthy was the increase in the number of messages exchanged between the houses concerning amendments to bills. A total of nine bills were involved in such exchanges during this quarter. In five cases, all involving government legislation, the House of Commons either disagreed with the Senate amendments, or accepted certain amendments --sometimes with changes--and disagreed with others. In all these cases the Senate did not insist on its changes, agreeing with the amendments made by the Commons. The reply to the message from the House of Commons on Bill C-44 did, however, note "that the Senate confirms its privileges, immunities and powers as provided under the Constitution to amend legislation, whatever its nature or source". In three cases, relating to non-government bills, the originating house agreed to the other house's amendments. As for the last case, the message from the Commons with amendments to Bill S-3, which amends the Indian Act to address sex-based inequities in registration, the item was still on the Orders of the Day for consideration by the Senate as of the writing of this summary.

On June 14, 2017, the Senate adopted a motion authorizing its Clerk, Charles Robert, to appear before a committee of the House of Commons with regards to his nomination as Clerk of that house. His nomination was subsequently confirmed and took effect on July 10, 2017.

Speaker's Rulings

The Speaker dealt with several points of order this period. Two rulings were particularly significant.

On April 13 the Speaker ruled on the receivability of an amendment to Bill C-6, amending the Citizenship Act. After providing background on the issues of principle and relevancy, and how they related to the bill, his ruling was that the amendment was in order and that debate could continue. In reaching his decision the Speaker noted that the Senate is a debating chamber and, unless an amendment is clearly out of order, debate should normally be allowed to continue.

On June 14, 2017, a senator moved a motion of instruction proposing that the National Finance Committee divide Bill C-44, a budget implementation act. The acceptability of this motion was...