Sir GEORGE PERLEY (Argenteuil) moved:

That the first report of the special committee appointed to consider jointly with Mr. Speaker the amending of the standing orders of the house governing the procedure to be followed in taking a division, be concurred in.

Mr. MARCIL:

Would the hon. member explain that report?

Sir GEORGE PERLEY:

The report

appears in the votes and proceedings of June 18. The object to which the committee gave consideration was the saving of time in the taking of divisions; several plans were suggested and we gave the matter a good deal of consideration. There are some legislative assemblies which use electrical devices for registering votes, which are shown on a large board located in the chamber. Every member has electric buttons at his desk, and when he presses a button his vote is recorded. That is the quickest way of taking a vote, but the electrical machinery is liable to get out of order and it is hardly consistent with our way of doing business; it takes away all the human interest in the division.

In other places they use a ballot box; I think that system is in force in Paris. The members pass by and drop in their ballots, but that really is no quicker than our own method and it is really a secret ballot, which would not be at all consistent with our ideas.

In Washington they have a roll call. This appeals to a great many people as a good way of taking a vote, but when we considered it in the committee we felt that the clerk would have to read out every name, whether or not the member was present, and therefore probably no time would be saved by that method.

Another system under consideration was the one followed in the House of Commons in England. There the members go into lobbies, and some of the members of the committee felt we should give that system a trial in this parliament. But in this house every member has a seat, while in the British House of Commons a great many of the members do not have seats, and so it seemed to the committee that for the present we had better try this other way of saving time.

The suggestion of the committee is that one of the officers of the house should come here when a division is taking place and tally the votes as they are called during the division, so that as soon as every member has voted the result will be ready to announce. There is always a delay while the votes are added up, and I have noticed that our own chief whip and the chief whip on the other side have the vote tallied as soon as every member has voted. The view of the committee was that we should try that system for the remainder of the session.

Mr. EULER:

Would my hon. friend give

a little fuller description of the method of procedure? I did not quite grasp his explanation.

Sir GEORGE PERLEY:

The idea is that we will continue as we have in the past but that there shall be another officer in the house who will sit down and tally these votes in groups of five, as is done by many individual members, as each vote is recorded, so as soon as the last member has voted the result will be ready to announce.

Mr. EULER:

It will not save very much

time.

Sir GEORGE PERLEY:

My hon. friend

knows that after the votes are taken we have to wait while they are totalled, and none of us likes to do that. At any rate, we feel this is worth trying a few times in order to see whether it enables us to take a vote more quickly. I want to remind hon. mem-

Proceedure in Taking Divisions

bers that a great deal of the time occupied in taking a division in this house is taken in waiting for the whips to find the members and see that they are all here. After the members are here and the taking of the vote actually begins, it does not take so very long to complete it. Of course, even if we adopted the system followed in England, we would not save much time because the whips still would have to go out and get the members to come in to vote.

Mr. DUFF:

Let well enough alone.

Sir GEORGE PERLEY:

So it was the

opinion of the committee that we ought to try this suggestion for the rest of the session and see whether it saves enough time to make it worth while. If it is considered then that next session we should try the system followed in the English house I, for one, would be quite content.

Mr. C. G. POWER (Quebec South):

I

hope it will be understood that the official count kept by the Clerk of the House is to remain the official record of the vote.

Sir GEORGE PERLEY:

Certainly.

Mr. POWER:

And not the tally kept by

this additional officer.

Sir GEORGE PERLEY:

Occasionally

there might be a discrepancy, but I should not think it would mean a difference of more than one vote. Even that is hardly likely, because I have noticed that for the last three or four divisions the tallies of our whips have been exactly right. If there should be a discrepancy I think the understanding should be that the record of the Clerk of the House should govern when the vote is printed in the votes and proceedings.

Mr. POWER:

I think there should be

provision in the rules of the house whereby any member should ask that the tally of this additional official should be checked with the record kept by the clerk. I do nof see anything else for it, because I have had the experience which I think my hon. friend has had in times gone by, of people checking these votes as they proceeded, and out of four or five who have checked no two could agree on the result.

Sir GEORGE PERLEY:

They are not

always as accurate as the whip on this side of the house.

Mr. DUFF:

I would ask the hon. member

to allow this motion to stand for the present, until we have time to give it consideration.