Mr. HENRI BOURASSA (Labelle):

Last Thursday I gave notice that I would propose to-day that the standing orders of the house be amended by inserting the following:

9(a). Upon a division a member is not obliged to vote.

In moving this amendment I do not propose anything new. I simply desire to clarify the situation and to enable the house and yourself, sir, as guardian of the rules of this house, to avoid a repetition of the little embroilment of last week. That, however, I regard, as a matter of fact, only as an incident. What I wish to make clear is that there never has been and that there is not at the present time any standing order or set rule governing the manner in which members must vote or refrain from voting. What has -been quoted in this house or outside the house as Rule 68 is not and never has been a rule; it is one of the footnotes which Mr. Beauchesne has incorporated as comments upon the very rule

which I propose to discuss to-day-that is, standing order No. 9. And even at that, Mr. Beauchesne's footnote, No. 68, which my good friend from Charlevoix-fiaguenay (Mr. Casgrain) mistook for a rule of the house, is but the reproduction of a paragraph of Bourinot's fourth edition, at page 381, as any man familiar with Mr. Beauchene's book, or with the rules of the house, can easily find out; because there, after paragraph 68, you have "B-381." Besides, that paragraph in Bourinot's fourth edition of 1916, which was edited by a predecessor of our able clerk, Doctor Flint, is also a verbatim reproduction of the same words used by Sir John Bourinot in the first edition of his book in 1884, at page 389. Now, that comment of Sir John Bourinot, reproduced as it has been from time to time, was absolutely true and accurate as applied to the practices of the British and Canadian houses in 1884. I do not think I shall have any trouble in demonstrating that it is no longer applicable to the rules of this house as they were revised in 1927.

Now to give a short history of our standing orders. The first set of rules or standing orders of this house were adopted on December 20, 1867, as may be found in the Journals of the House of Commons for the year 1867-68, at pages 115 to 125. Neither in these standing orders, any more than in any other standing orders following, nor in the present standing orders, was there any disposition regarding the right of members either to vote or not to vote. But there was a general governing clause, adopted as standing order No. 116, which stated:

In all unprovided cases the Rules, Usages and Forms of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland shall be followed.

That is what I call the governing rule of all our standing orders, from that day until the present time. As it was in 1867, that general clause did not make any mention as to date with regard to the usages pursued in the House of Commons in England; they were to apply from time to time. The first time that the matter was brought up in the house-at least the first time, and I think it is sufficient, that I have discovered-was in 1879, when the house voted, if I remember rightly, on the famous legislation concerning the Canadian Pacific Railway. An hon. member having voted, his vote was challenged by one of the ministers of the crown, Mr. Caron, because he had paired; upon which the Prime Minister, Sir John Macdonald, leader of the house, stood up and stated, in contradiction of his own colleague, that-

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Every member in the house, if called upon, was compelled to vote, and even if a gentleman got up and stated that he had paired, the house could compel him to vote, because, if he had paired, he must leave the house before the Vote was taken. This was English practice.

If the rule stood now as it was then, it would mean that every time a vote is taken, members getting up and declaring that they have not voted because they are paired, break the same rule, or rather what has been mentioned as such, but which as a matter of fact is not a rule but only a practice. Let us see, however. Upon this opinion of Sir John Macdonald, implicitly endorsed by the whole house, Sir John Bourinot based the comment which I have quoted and which Mr. Beauchesne has reproduced in his paragraph, No. 68, misquoted as a rule of this house. The only rule was the practice as defined by Sir John Macdonald in 1879, then in force in England as here; because it must be noted that Sir John Macdonald invoked it as applying to this house inasmuch as it was the English practice.

In 1906, however, the British House of Commons revised its standing orders and adopted the following rule: [DOT]

No. 29. A member may vote in a division although he did not hear the question put.

And paragraph 2:

A member is not obliged to vote.

-which are the exact words that I have put in the motion I now propose to the house. Now, did this apply to Canada? No. And why not? Because in 1906, the same year, in the month of March, the House of Commons of Canada had revised its rules and in substitution for the governing rule 116 of 1867 it had introduced a new governing clause. It is called "General Rule No. 1." This, I claim, is the most important of the standing orders because it governs the whole. It reads:

In ah eases not provided for hereinafter- That is, by the standing orders.

-or by sessional or other orders, the rules, usages and forms of proceeding of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, in force on the first day of July 1867, shall be followed.

As Doctor Flint quotes in his posterior edition of Bourinot's work, the effect of this was to prevent the application to the House of Commons of Canada of the new standing order adopted in England in December 1906. So that when, in 1022', Mr. Beauchesne issued the first edition of his comments, he was perfectly justified in inserting this footnote. It was 'then under No. 69, now under No. 68. This paragraph says that an hon. member is Obliged to vote. That was copied, I repeat,

from feir John Bourinot. Then paragraph 70^69 of the second edition (1927)-reads as follows:

Under ancient custom, refusal to vote was considered a serious parliamentary offence, but the practice was changed in 1906 by the British house adopting a standing order whereby a member is not obliged to vote. That standing order does not apply to the Canadian Commons The practice has not been changed in Canada where every member who has heard the question put is bound to vote..

This is the second paragraph referred to by the hon. member for Charlevoix (Mr. Cas-grain) as being another rule of the house. The hon. member was apparently under the misapprehension that Mr. Beauchesne is the parliament of Canada and that his comments are to be taken as rules of this house, just as a lawyer in consulting with a client might confuse the opinion of a commentator with the text of a statute or of a judgment delivered by the court. I do not think my hon. friend would act in that way in his capacity as a lawyer.

Mr. CA8GRAIN: Not all the time.

Mr. BOURASSA:

My hon. friend did not do it intentionally. I am sure that most hon. members of this house are apt to make such mistakes once in a while; and may I say for the benefit of the hon. lady member for Southeast Grey (Miss Macphail) that many members of the press gallery seemed to be under the same misapprehension. Neither Sir John Bourinot nor Mr. Beauchesne is the parliament of Canada, nor should a private opinion expressed by even such eminent parliamentary jurists as Sir John Bourinot or Mr. Beauchesne prevail over the expressed will of parliament.

I think I can demonstrate quite easily that in 1927 this house changed its attitude with regard to this very question and adopted a new rule which put into effect the practice which for many years, even previous to 1906, had been in force in Great Britain. In 1927, as every hon. member knows, our rules were revised. Heaven knows-my hon. friend beside me (Mr. Neill) will support me in this- they were not revised with the idea of giving more freedom to independent members of this house. However, the committee which revised our rules did not think it necessary to impose upon hon. members the obligation of voting if conscientiously they did not feel like voting. What did they do? They introduced a new governing rule. While the House of Commons had, in 1006, declared that such practices, customs and usages of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom would apply here only as prior to 1867, under the

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rules adopted by this house in 1927 we reverted to the principle of 1867, and in fact made it much clearer. The general rule governing all such cases now is standing order No. 1, which reads as follows:

In all cases not provided for hereinafter or by sessional or other orders, the usages and customs of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland as in force at the time shall be followed so far as they may be applicable to this house.

The principle of applying only those rules in force in 1867 was deleted. So that from 1927 on, we have it stated in so many words in our standing orders, which are the laws governing the proceedings in this house, that the forms and practices now in force in England are in force here to govern all cases not provided for by our own standing orders. Under this new governing rule, which was a revolution, whether right or wrong, the then Speaker, Hon. Mr. Lemieux, decided twice during the session of 1928-the first session following the adoption of these rules-that a member although present in the house was not obliged to vote.

The first occasion occurred on March 27, 1928, to be found at page 1755 of the debates of that year. Curiously enough, the challenge was issued by the hon. member for Acadia (Mr. Gardiner), so he has good reason to know the rule which was applied at that time. The hon. member raised the point that the then Minister of Immigration, Mr. Forke, had not voted, and then followed a very picturesque and I think very true comment by the hon. member for Lincoln (Mr. Chaplin), as follows:

'The minister is not the only one who did not understand what he was voting for.

I think that is one of the best comments on parliamentary government ever made. Mr. Speaker Lemieux spoke thus:

The rule is that members who are present when a motion is read must vote if they are in the house whilst the division is being taken. But when an hon. member declares that he does not know what the amendment is about, he is excused from voting. That is the practice followed in the British House of Commons.

Unfortunately, the Speaker, who had given his decision on the spur of the moment, did not quote the authorities. However, on May 26 of the same year another occasion arose on which the then Minister of Finance, Mr. Robb, challenged the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Kennedy) for abstaining from voting. The decision of the Speaker, which appears on page 3420 of the debates of that year, was as follows:

Generally, under the practice of the house, an hon. member who has heard the question put must vote. However, lately, since 1906,

I know, in the British parliament this time-honoured practice has been ignored; I have seen a standing order-

The one which I read a moment ago-

-to the effect that when a member does not feel justified in voting he need not do so. I decided this point some weeks ago, when the Minister of Immigration and Colonization (Mr. Forke) was in the same position; he declared that because of conscientious reasons he did not think it wise to vote on the question.

The cause of the confusion which arose last week reduces itself to this: In publishing his

book in 1927 our excellent clerk did not delete those so-called rules Nos. 68 and 69. They were not really rules, they were opinions previously expressed by Sir John Bourinot and Mr. Beauchesne. At the time they were expressed, they were quite proper but had no further application after the change of the governing rule made in 1927. In justice to our clerk, whom I consider to be one of the best parliamentary authorities, not only in Canada but in the British Empire, it must be said that this book was published a few weeks after the close of the session. He himself in his preface points out the fact that because of the changes adopted during the previous session he added some two hundred footnotes to the present edition, and struck out other footnotes which had no further application. His mistake would probably have been made by nine out of ten, if not by forty-nine out of fifty men. The clerk had to follow, and he did so with much industry and legal insight, the full effect of this new governing clause No. 1 upon all the standing orders and practices of this house. It would have taken months fully to realize what the effect of this new rule would be on the various practices and customs theretofore undefined either in the rules of our house or in those of the British house. So I repeat and I think I could end by saying that what I am moving to-day is in order to dispel a misapprehension, to put into concrete form what has been since 1927 the unwritten rule of the house and assented to by jurisprudence from the chair the year after the rules were revised.

But before I take my seat I want to go a little further, and I hope the house will acquit me of a desire simply to give a little satisfaction to my amour propre. What I want td demonstrate in my closing words is that this rule, as now written and applied in England-and it was applied in practice several years before it was enacted in their standing orders-is in strict conformity with

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the evolution of parliamentary government that has taken place both in England and here, not to speak of other countries. I quite realize that for the many years during which the House of Commons was divided into two strictly regulated parties, the shepherds of those two flocks, for instance my good friends the hon. member for Charlevoix-Saguenay (Mr. Casgrain) and the hon. member for West Algoma (Mr. Simpson), were mostly concerned with bringing in all the stranded ewes and making them vote in accordance with the party whip or order. But whether they like the situation or not, in England as here, with the extension of the suffrage not only to the various classes of men but to women as well, the point has been reached that the two party system is no longer satisfactory to a growing number of men and women either in Great Britain or in Canada. I find it quite legitimate on the part of the old party leaders, their followers and their press men, to deprecate that growth, but still it is there; and so long as there are fractions of the Canadian community, as in England, who send to parliament men who are not bound to follow the dictates of the two old parties, not only must those men be allowed freedom to express their opinions in concrete motions as they present them in contradistinction to the motions presented by the government or the official opposition; but in addition we must acknowledge to those men elected by the free electorate of Canada, the same liberty of not voting for any motion presented by a Conservative or by a Liberal if they find in that motion something to which they agree and something with which they disagree. Is that not reasonable?

Mr. LAPOINTE:

If this be the rule as it exists now, what is the necessity of enacting this new rule as would be done by the hon. member's motion?

Mr. BOURASSA:

This is simply to clarify the matter. First of all it was evident last week that many hon. members were misinformed as to the situation. I am quite sure and I am prepared to say that every one of them was in perfect good faith. Under what circumstances are laws or regulations passed in the British house? In such matters I always rely upon British practice because, after all, the practice of parliamentary government is essentially British, and whether we agree or disagree with many things in British policy, we must agree that the British parliament, as a parliament, remains the example. Why did they adopt that rule in England? Because the point had been reached when

first the Irish party, then the Labour party, and then the Independent Labour party, had cropped up; and very often they were not permitted to express their views otherwise than by abstention from voting. Very wisely here as in England we have stuck to the rule that we should not have numerous amendments. But suppose even we changed that so as to give to my friends to my left, the Progressives-and even they are now nearly divided into two groups-or my friends of the Labour group, or myself or my good neighbour, the right to express our views in subamendments. After those subamendments have been disposed of we are obliged to vote either for or against the amendment, or the motion, or to abstain from voting. I do not want to refer to a past debate, but as a matter of illustration I may say that I stated quite clearly that the amendment of the leader of the opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King) suited me in one respect but not in another. By voting against it I would have been forced to deny something in which I believed and by voting for it I would have been forced to approve something I did not approve. It is evident it was under the weight of such considerations that the change was made in England and I ask the house to make the same change here simply to clarify the question.

May I appeal to both the leader of the government and the leader of the opposition for whom-and they know this although we may differ on many occasions,-I have the greatest respect? I appeal especially to the Prime Minister whose marvellous erudition in matters of law and of parliamentary government has many times given me wonder. He is undoubtedly one of the greatest legal minds in this country. I am quite sure he is sincerely very much concerned with the preservation of the best traditions of British government. May I remind him of this? When the change was made in England it was proposed by Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman, not an upsetter of things, I believe, one of the most respected of British statesmen in the last century. Around him sat as ministers of the crown such men as Sir Edward Grey, James Bryce-I call them as they were then styled, mere commoners but men of great value- Mr. Haldane, who later on became Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Mr. Asquith. On the other side the opposition was led in the house by Mr. Arthur Balfour, surrounded by such men as the Right Hon. Joseph Chamberlain, his son Austen, Lord Robert Cecil, and that veteran, not so well known perhaps outside of England but so much re-

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spected in England, Sir Edward Clarke, who died just a few days ago, one of the shining lights and one of the most respected men in the British parliament as well as before the British courts. All those men sat there, and whilst many other proposals which were enacted then by a majority were discussed, this disposition which I ask the Canadian House of Commons to adopt for the same obvious reason that it was adopted in England, was not only adopted unanimously but not challenged by anybody. Do hon. members think if that change had been considered as an attempt to break with the best traditions of the House of Commons, as a danger to the working of parliamentary institutions, there would not have been found amongst those that I have named a single man to protest? But no, it passed unanimously.

The other portion of the rule, the one which exempts members from hearing the question, was challenged and, indeed, rather amusingly. The Conservative member who challenged the other part of the rule and said th-at the members should listen to the question, gave at the same time the evidence that that rule also had been disregarded for a good while in England, especially since the adoption of the new system of registering the vote by going through the lobbies. He said that time and again, he had heard members rushing into a lobby and asking friends of theirs; "What is all this about?"-"Biowed if I know!" Thus you had two informed members of the House of Commons pushing themselves into the lobby and coming out from the lobby into the House without knowing what they were voting for. For that reason it is better to discriminate, and here I give to the hon. member for Quebec East, the former Minister of Justice, (Mr. Lapointe), my reason for proposing this change. If we left it as it is, the whole of standing order 29 and the practice founded in England upon it, would apply to us. It would exempt members of the house from listening to a question. I do not believe in that, first for the reason that was given by Mr. Rutherford in England, but mainly because our mode of voting is not that which prevails in England. I claim, sir, that I am precisely within the spirit of British institutions when I say, as was stated time and time again by Sir John A. Macdonald and others, that all those rules and practices of the British parliament which are applicable to us we should endeavour to preserve, and those that are not applicable we should not. Therefore, I think that we should discard the first part of standing order 29 as adopted in England because not yet having resorted to the lobby system of voting it seems to me only

decent, were it only for the edification of the public, that a member should be in his seat when the question is put. I think that that is a conclusive reason why we should adopt that part of standing order 29 of the English house which concerns the liberty of members not to vote, but not the other part which allows them to vote without knowing upon what they are voting. Therefore, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Comox-Alberni (Mr. Neill), the motion standing in my name as it is recorded in the Votes and Proceedings.

Right Hon. R. B. BENNETT (Prime Minister) :

I think, Mr. Speaker, that I voice the views of all the members of this house when I express our gratitude to the hon. member for Labelle (Mr. Bourassa) for the toil to which he has gone in bringing to the attention of the members the history of this rule. He has done it dispassionately, and I think with precision.

May I venture, however, to remind him that the reason why we in Canada are authorized to make such rules as we might desire for the government of our own house, provided that they did not exceed the power exercised in the making of rules by the House of Commons of Great Britain is to be found in the fact that when the British North America Act was originally passed it contained in section eighteen a clause which provided as follows:

The privileges, immunities, and powers to be held, enjoyed, and exercised by the Senate and by the House of Commons, and by the members therof respectively, shall be such as are from time to time defined by act of the parliament of Canada, but so that the same shall never exceed those at the passing of this act held, enjoyed, and exercised by the Commons House of 'Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and by the members thereof.

That, in a very vital moment in our history, was found to stand in the way of the exercise of certain necessary powers, so in 1875, on the 19th of July, the imperial parliament amended the British North America Act by substituting a new section reading as follows:

The privileges, immunities, and powers to be held, enjoyed, and exercised by the Senate and by the House of Commons, and by the members thereof respectively, shall be such as are from time to time defined by act of the parliament of Canada, but so that any act of the parliament of Canada defining such privileges, immunities, and powers shall not confer any privileges, immunities, or powers exceeding those at the passing of such act held, enjoyed, and exercised by the Commons House of Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and by the members thereof.

As the hon. member for Labelle has very properly pointed out, there was a rule in

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England until recent years compelling members to vote. That rule was abrogated in 1906 under the circumstances to which the hon. gentleman has referred, and to which I shall presently make some reference. The original rule was based on the assumption that every member of the House of Commons should, if he were in his place, vote upon any given question that was submitted by the Speaker for the consideration of the house. Two factors influenced the commons in changing that rule, one was the confusion with respect to voting. The hon. gentleman has referred to that. As is well known, in England to vote a member leaves the chamber and goes into either the government or the opposition lobby. The tellers are appointed by the Speaker for the division. When several parties other than the two old parties, as the hon. gentleman has said, began to exercise authority there was first of all provision made, not by law, but by custom, for abstention from voting, and the reason that the rule was amended was because it was so wholly disregarded. That was the real reason. In other words, the confusion in voting and the difficulties in voting, by reason of there being but the (two lobbies, had brought about a situation that made it incumbent that the rules should be changed in the manner indicated.

In my opinion this is a matter which every member of ithe house should consider from the point of view of the best interests of the house. In my opinion every member of the house, if he is in the chamber, should record his view on every question submitted to the house by the Speaker. As I was thinking of this matter ithis morning I remembered the words of Burke:

I certainly have very warm wishes for the place of my birth, but the sphere of my duties is my true country.

Those of you who recall that celebrated 9peeeh of his to the electors of Bristol will recognize that he -put perhaps as fairly as it has ever been put the position of a member of parliament. The duty of a member of parliament is not only to his own constituency; it is to every part of this broad Dominion from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Once we have conceded the right of any member to withdraw from the chamber, then I think by the very nature of our proceedings and the method we adopt in voting, he must vote if he is in his place. I say that for two reasons: First, because his sitting in thischamber when ithe question is put involvesmuch confusion if he does not vote. Youhave that here in this chamber yoursel-f, Mr. Speaker, and it is known to all of us.

Secondly, I conceive that there rests upon

every member who thinks it worth while to sit in the chamber the duty to express to this country what his views are with respect to the questions so submitted to him. Does not that seem to be reasonable? In a vast country such as this where we have but 245 members, with questions which affect the well-being -of every part of the body politic constantly -being submitted for our consideration, and having by an extension of our rules given the right to a third group to move a subamendmen-t -when going into supply, thereby securing great freedom for -every individual in the expression of his opinion- is it not incumbent upon every one of us elected not only to represent a particular constituency, but to deal with problems that affeot the well-being of Canada as a whole, to express his opinion in the only method known to the law in which he can express it in this house, namely, by rising in his place and recording his opinion? While pairs are not recognized by parliamentary practice and procedure, the custom or convention has grown up whereby the view of a member paired is recorded upon the journals of the house. I cannot therefore do other than in a very few words indicate that I believe it is the bounden duty of every hon. member of the Canadian House of Commons, in view of the problems with which we have to deal, to be ready and willing if he sits in this house to express an opinion. If peradventure there be those who believe that it is undesirable for particular reasons at a given moment not to express an opinion, I see no reason why an hon. member might not withdraw from the house. I very distinctly recall an occasion in which I did. I felt that for the moment I was not in accord with the view held by my friends, and another hon. gentleman and myself retired from the chamber rather than vote. I was sitting in the seat now occupied by the former Minister of Marine (Mr. Cardin). In England it requires only seven or eight minutes to record a division, and in the English House of Commons there are about six hundred members. Those hon. members who have watched the clock realize how long it takes in this house. The provision for calling in the members in the Canadian House of Commons is somewhat different from the custom in England. In our house Mr. Speaker says, "Call in the members," and during the interval which elapses between the time the bell rings to call in the members and the Speaker rises to put the question there is a period given for hon. members to finally determine whether or not they will go into the lobby and not vote or be in the house and vote. I consider that interval to afford

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opportunity to each hon. member to consider how he will vote-such an opportunity is not afforded in the same way in England. As Burke said in one of his addresses the English do not believe that customs which violate the law should long continue and the law is repealed. And so the custom by which the law was disregarded with respect to voting in England was crystallized by the repeal of the provisions which called upon members to vote.

We are a new country, with fresh problems, large obligations and responsibilities, and I do not believe there is in this house a single member who desires to escape his obligations or be relieved of his responsibilities. His obligations are ito Canada. His responsibilities are to the country as a whole and in the discharge of those obligations and responsibilities I believe it is in the best interests of this Dominion that every member of this house should, when the proper moment comes, rise in his place and express his opinion upon every question submitted from the chair. If he does not wish to do that he should withdraw from the chamber and thereby preserve his independence of mind and freedom of choice hereafter. That is my conviction in the matter.

Holding these views as strongly as I do I now move an amendment to the motion made by the hon. member for Labelle (Mr. Bourassa) seconded by Mr. Stevens as follows:

That the motion be amended by striking out the word "not" therein before the word "obi iged."

so that hereafter, whatever doubt may have been entertained in the past, it will be removed and all hon. members in this house will be obliged to vote when the question is put from the chair.

Mr. SPEAKER:

Mr. Bennett moves in amendment, seconded by Mr. Stevens that the motion be amended by striking out the word "not" therein before the word "obliged." The original motion reads:

That the standing orders of this house be amended by inserting the following as 9(a).

Upon a division a member is not obliged to vote.

The effect of the amendment is to strike out from the motion the word "not". The motion would then read that the member is obliged to vote. Is it the pleasure of the house to adopt the motion?

Mr. WOODSWORTH:

On a point of order, I would like to ask whether the amendment as put is in order? Is it not a negative of the original motion?

Mr. SPEAKER:

My ruling is that the amendment is in order. The original motion 22110-66

is for an amendment of the rules, and the amendment is also for an amendment of the rules, but in a different way. I therefore hold that the amendment is in order.

Hon. CHARLES MARCIL (Bonaventure):

I am not quite pleased with the way the Prime Minister has explained the situation, or his contention that every hon. member who i3 present in the house must vote. Those who are paired cannot vote.

Mr. BENNETT:

I excepted them.

Mr. MARCIL:

There is no record kept of pairs, except in Hansard, and Hansard is not official. It is not an official record of the proceedings of this bouse. Therefore if this new rule passed a member who is paired would have to leave the house because he is paired and cannot vote. He is prevented from voting because he is paired. Pairs however are not recognized by the chair and are not mentioned in the journals of the house. I would like to know what the Prime Minister means.

Hon. ERNEST LAPOINTE (Quebec East):

There is no doubt that my hon. friend from Labelle (Mr. Bourassa) is correct in his interpretation of the situation as it exists. So much is clear. From the words of my right hon. friend the Prime Minister there is no doubt a mistake has been made, and now it is proposed to correct that mistake by enacting a new rule. So far as I am concerned, although I believe it is desirable that hon. members should vote on every question submitted to them, I do not think it fair to correct that situation by enacting a rule in this way to-day. Usually rules of the house when changed or amended are so changed and amended by a special committee. There is a Speaker's committee where the whole situation may be considered and studied, and I am free to say that if I were a member of such a committee I would perhaps support the views of my right hon. friend the Prime Minister. Certainly however I will not vote for his amendment in order to correct the mistake which was made the other day.

Mr. ROBERT GARDINER (Acadia):

In view of the discussion which has taken place, I have not very much ,to say more particularly with regard to the statements which have been made by the hon. member for Labelle (Mr. Bourassa). In so far a3 former rules are concerned he has covered the situation very clearly. The Prime Minister has moved an amendment however which is of some importance, and which probably will mean a great deal to hon. members of this house. I think the suggestion made by

acviaro edition

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the hon. member for Quebec East (Mr. Lapointe), the former Minister of Justice, that this matter be referred to a special committee of the house, is a fair one. However I am not very hopeful that this will be done, because I believe the Prime Minister has made up his mind that he is going to have his way on this occasion.

Mr. BENNETT:

Rather unfair, but still

Mr. McINTOSH:

What is wrong with

that?

Mr. GARDINER:

Both the motion and

the amendment arose out of an occurrence of last Tuesday night when the amendment to the motion in regard to the reply to the speech from the throne was being voted upon. At that time certain hon. members in this corner of the house did not vote either for or against the amendment. So far as we were concerned, we felt that we were within our rights, more particularly having in mind the rulings of the former Speaker.

Let me point out clearly to the house that the amendment to the address in reply to the speech from the throne was purely a party amendment. That is my judgment of it. The time of this house is given to playing party politics more than to the real business of the country. In view of the proposed amendment by the Prime Minister apparently such practice is going to continue unceasingly. I wish the people of Canada could sit in this house sometimes-

Mr. BENNETT:

Hear, hear.

Mr. GARDINER:

-and listen to the debate and note the waste of time through the two political parties jockeying for political advantage; if the people knew what went on in this chamber I am satisfied they would make a change pretty quickly.

The rules of the house up to the present have been designed practically for the playing of the old two-party system. As far as we are concerned we object to this. Personally, and I think I can speak for my colleagues as well, if any question comes before ' the house that merits the attention of members, and consequently is a question upon which they would vote, you will always find, Mr. Speaker, that we will vote. But when questions are brought forward as a matter of party tactics, we will not take notice of them and we will not vote on them. If this amendment is adopted and we are forced to leave the house while a division is being taken, then we will leave the house as a protest against this kind of procedure.