Ruling
June 8, 2015
Relevance: reflections on the Senate
Hon. Andrew Scheer
Speaker of the House
Ruling Text
The Acting Speaker:
The matter before the House tonight relates to the Main Estimates and specifically a motion from the Official Opposition to defund the Senate. That is the matter that is before the House. I have listened carefully to the Member's speech and the Member's speech touched on lack of justification for the Senate. If and when Members make arguments that the Senate ought to be defunded because money is improperly or unwisely used, and the Government Members respond with a question that relates to the spending of money in other parts of the Estimates, including in the House of Commons, this is where we sit. There is no specific Standing Order that relates to this. It would appear that the Parliamentary Secretary is intent on asking essentially a similar question to different Members when they do this.
I go back to the point that I made a couple of minutes ago which is that the point of the rules is not to put an absolute limit on where you are allowed to go, but it is to guide behaviour of Members in the House. I would ask Members, including the Parliamentary Secretary, to keep the questions focused on the business that is before the House as it relates to the Senate. His contention that a standard that is being applied in the Senate ought to be or could be applied in the House of Commons is a rhetorical question. I am not sure that the Parliamentary Secretary needs to get into all of the specific details in order to make that point, if that is the point that he wants to make. If he wants to ask that rhetorical question, that would be acceptable, but to get into the detail of matters that are before the House that do not relate directly to the Senate will be ruled out of order by this Chair.
I would ask the hon.
Parliamentary Secretary to put his question to the hon.
Member. For all hon.
Members that ask questions subsequently, again I would ask for Members' cooperation to stick to the matter that is before the House related to Senate expenses.
Edit Metadata
Holding
"During debate on a motion concerning the Senate, questions must remain relevant; rhetorical comparisons to House of Commons spending are permissible, but detailed questions about unrelated House matters will be ruled out of order."
AI Summary
The Speaker ruled that questions in a debate on Senate funding must remain relevant and cannot delve into detailed, unrelated spending by the House of Commons.
AI Analysis
- Outcome
- Other
- Tone
- Educational
- Procedural Stage
- Government Orders
- Significance
Low
High