Mr. Speaker, on March 10, Bill C-216, an act to amend the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Act with regard to supply management, was referred to the Standing Committee on International Trade pursuant to an order of reference from the House.

I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the bill has still not been studied as ordered by this House on March 10. According to House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition, Bosc and Gagnon note on page 1003, “When a bill is referred to a committee, the bill itself constitutes the order of reference.”

With respect to private members' bills, Standing Order 97.1 provides that the committee to which such a bill has been referred has 60 sitting days from the date of the order of reference to complete its study and report the bill to the House. However, the schedule dated May 3 for the work of the Standing Committee on International Trade, as proposed by the chair herself, calls for a clause-by-clause study of Bill C-216 on June 7, almost three months after the March 10 order of reference.

I believe it is worth noting that this same schedule proposes seven committee meetings, all prior to June 7, to conduct the business that the committee itself adopted.

I maintain that orders of reference issued by the House must take precedence over work initiated by the committee itself.

On this issue, I refer you to page 1058 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition, on which the authors report Speaker Milliken's remarks in debate in 2002: on November 21, on pages 1738 to 1740; on November 25, on pages 1841 and 1842; on November 26, on pages 1912 and 1913; on November 27, on pages 1949 to 1950.

According to Speaker Milliken, the freedoms that committees have to organize their work as they see fit are not total or absolute. Speaker Milliken stated, “First, it is useful to bear in mind that committees are creatures of the House”.On page 1058 of Bosc and Gagnon's House of Commons Procedure and Practice, in reference to page 230 of Beauchesne's Parliamentary Rules and Forms, sixth edition, it is stated that:

...[committees] have no independent existence and are not permitted to take action unless they have been authorized or empowered to do so by the House.

The freedom committees have is, in fact, a freedom limited on two levels. First, committees are free to organize their proceedings as they see fit provided that their studies and the motions and reports they adopt comply with the orders of reference and instructions issued by the House. Second, committees may adopt procedural rules to govern their proceedings, but only to the extent the House does not prescribe anything specific. At all times, directives from procedural sources higher than parliamentary committees...take precedence over any rules a committee may adopt.

By that logic, all studies of bills, including Bill C-216, must take precedence over the studies that the committee has decided to undertake, since the bill is considered an official order of reference from the House.

The House already spoken on this issue as part of its debate on the adoption of Standing Order 97.1. I am referring to the debate starting on page 9469 of the Debates of April 8, 1997.

Many hon. members at the time were in favour of Recommendation No. 4 made by the Subcommittee on Private Members' Business in its report of October 31, 1996, following a study carried out pursuant to an order of the House on House business that is votable.

Thus, I would like to remind the House that, when a bill is tabled before it, whether it is a government bill or not, it belongs to the House, and the committee to which it is referred must give priority to studying it, as it is an order from the House.

Unfortunately, in the case before us, Bill C-216 does not seem to have generated the interest it deserves as an order of reference, since the studies undertaken by the Standing Committee on International Trade on its own initiative were given priority, in spite of the order of reference for Bill C-216 dated March 10.

I refer you to the schedule dated May 3 provided to committee members by its chair. On May 3, 7, 10 and 14, witnesses testified for the committee study on Canadian exportation of green, clean and low-carbon technologies.

On May 28, the committee is scheduled to hear from witnesses and officials from the management and consular office and from Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada for the study on Canada's international trade and investment policy pursuant to the motion adopted on April 30, 2021, more than 40 days after Bill C-216 was referred to the committee.

On May 31, the committee will begin its consideration of the draft report on the reform of the World Trade Organization, or WTO, and investor-state dispute settlement, or ISDS.

On June 4, the committee will study the draft report on the WTO reform, and the meeting will be held in camera.

Members will all agree that the agenda of the committee, which plans to begin studying Bill C-216 on June 7, nearly three months after the date of the order of reference from the House, shows that the committee has very little political will with regard to the bill. In my opinion, that completely defies the parliamentary principle that a committee, as a subordinate entity of the House, must comply with an order of reference from the House and put the study of bills ahead of its own work.

That is why I am asking you, Mr. Speaker, to rule accordingly and order the Standing Committee on International Trade to immediately begin the study of Bill C-216.

Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay

$476,406.00