SO 2016-21 Amendment to SO 2016-3 Parliamentary Procedure Orders

SO 2016-21

Amendment to SO 2016-3 Parliamentary Procedure Orders

In order to encode and clarify the procedure for amending bills that have not yet become Acts of Parliament, we amend the Parliamentary Procedure Orders to that effect:

It is ORDERED that Article II Section j of SO 2016-3 Parliamentary Procedure Orders be amended to read as follows:

"j) When the debate time has ended, the Prime Minister will first put all non-withdrawn amendments of the bill to vote simultaneously for two days, before moving the bill, taking into account any amendments to it, to the Voting Chamber where the senators will vote for at least two and no more than four days or until all the senators have voted within that timeframe."

Sunday December 18, 2016
Abdoa, Senator

Abdoa wrote:SO 2016-21

Amendment to SO 2016-3 Parliamentary Procedure Orders

In order to encode and clarify the procedure for amending bills that have not yet become Acts of Parliament, we amend the Parliamentary Procedure Orders to that effect:

It is ORDERED that Article II Section j of SO 2016-3 Parliamentary Procedure Orders be amended to read as follows:

"j) When the debate time has ended, the Prime Minister will first put all non-withdrawn amendments of the bill to vote simultaneously for two days, before moving the bill, taking into account any amendments to it, to the Voting Chamber where the senators will vote for at least two and no more than four days or until all the senators have voted within that timeframe."

Sunday December 18, 2016
Abdoa, Senator

My Right Honourable friend the Prime Minister has created an amendment to the Parliamentary Procedures to which I sadly cannot grant my contentiousness; This amendment proposes to take a vote upon each amendment proposed during the debate of the Bill. This would make debates substantially longer than they would have to (and thus should) take.

Therefore, I would ask my Right Honourable friend to change this draft in such a way that, if the author of a Bill is content with an amendment, it shall be written into the Bill without prior votes being taken; Honourable Members of Parliament can do so when the entire Bill will be voted upon.

Those amendments that will not receive the contentiousness of the author, will then be voted upon like a motion.

I have added "simultaneously" after "will first put all non-withdrawn amendments of the bill to vote" to clarify that the PM will not put amendments to vote separately, but that Senators will express their consent or dissent for each amendment at the same time.

Also, considering that voting is not and never has been considered part of debating time, I don't really see any reason to not add two more days to the voting period. This is not holding up any later bills from being debated.

I support and cosponsor the bill as it stands.