Mr. Speaker, I am rising on a point of order with respect to the upcoming votes at report stage on Bill C-5. Page 788 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition, states:

When the Speaker selects and groups motions in amendment, he or she also decides on how they will be grouped for voting, that is, the Speaker determines the order in which the motions in amendment will be called and the effect of one vote on the others. The purpose of the voting scheme is to obviate any requirement for two or more votes on the same issue.

The Speaker delivers his or her decision regarding the grouping of motions in amendment after the order for the consideration of report stage of the bill has been read. The Speaker informs the House of the motions in amendment that he or she has selected and grouped for debate, the voting arrangements, and, where applicable, the motions in amendment that have not been selected, stating the reasons for this. Speakers have sometimes intervened at a later stage of the debate to revise the selection and grouping for debate of the motions in amendment.

It is with respect to this latter point I am now rising. Specifically, Mr. Speaker, you have grouped Motions Nos. 18 and 19. Motion No. 18, sponsored by my Bloc Québécois colleague, seeks to add the Canada Labour Code to the list of laws that are carved out from the scope of clauses 21 and 22 of the proposed building Canada act, the so-called Henry VIII clauses in the bill. Motion No. 19, sponsored by the Green member, would seek to add the Species at Risk Act to that same list. One concerns workers' rights, and the other is environmental in nature. These are, I would suspect, very distinct policy fields and merit separate votes.

Moreover, on procedural grounds, I would note that the Species at Risk Act is already listed in the building Canada act's proposed schedule 2. The member for Saanich—Gulf Islands had proposed a companion amendment in Motion No. 26, which would have removed it from the list, but this motion was not selected for debate today.

This means that the substantive effect of the motion concerning the Canada Labour Code, if adopted, would be that this law may never be added to schedule 2. On the other hand, the combined effect of the rulings on Motions Nos. 19 and 26, if Motion No. 19, respecting the Species at Risk Act, is adopted, would be that this law may not be added back to schedule 2, should it ever be removed by the Governor in Council at some point in the future.

In summary, Motions Nos. 18 and 19 are two separate motions proposed by members from two separate parties concerning very different subject matter and with two different procedural implications. In other words, separate votes on Motions Nos. 18 and 19 would not amount to two votes on the same issue.

Accordingly, I would respectfully submit that this is a textbook instance for the Chair to exercise the authority described in Bosc and Gagnon to revisit and revise the voting pattern established for the report stage of Bill C-5.

Philip Lawrence

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