This involves a first and second reading in the House of Commons, followed by the committee stage, at which each clause and schedule of the Bill is examined, and the report stage. The final House of Commons stage is the third reading, when the House takes an overview of the Bill as amended in the committee and report stages.
The Bill then moves to the House of Lords, where the process is similar to that in the House of Commons, with the Bill going through a series of readings and a committee stage.
The House of Lords often suggests amendments to the Bill. If the House of Commons accepts these, the Bill is passed. If the House of Lords rejects a Bill or makes amendments that are not accepted by the House of Commons, the Bill travels between the House of Commons and the House of Lords until they reach an agreement. When the Bill has gone through the parliamentary process it is sent to the Queen for Royal Assent.
It then becomes an Act of Parliament. Welcome back, let us show you around. Discover the power of our expert insight, trusted resources, data analysis and practical tools today. Members can then debate the main principles of a bill, and any changes recommended by the select committee in its report. Changes not supported by every committee member are subject to a single vote at the end of the second reading debate.
Changes that are supported by every committee member are automatically included in the bill if the second reading is agreed. If the vote is lost, that is the end of the bill. If the second reading is agreed, the bill is ready for debate by a committee of the whole House. Any member of the House can participate when a committee of the whole House debates a bill. The members sit in the Chamber but the Speaker does not take the chair. The debate is less formal than other debates, but is no less important.
Members have many chances to make short speeches and debate the provisions of a bill. These debates are a chance to examine the bill in detail. Ministers and members can propose changes. These changes may be published before the debate in a supplementary order paper SOP.
There is no time limit on these debates. Large or controversial bills may be before a committee of the whole House for several days. Once the final form of a bill is agreed, it is reprinted to show any changes that have been made. The bill is then ready for third reading. The vote at the end of the debate is the final vote in the House to either pass the bill or reject it.
Bills are rarely rejected at this stage. If the bill is passed there is one final step before it becomes law — Royal assent. This is called the Royal assent. Search Advanced Search Search. Search Search.
It also adopted provisions relating to notice of amendments and the length of speeches at this stage of the legislative process. In recommending that report stage be restored, the Special Committee on Procedure believed that stage to be essential in order to provide all Members of the House, and not merely members of the committee, with an opportunity to express their views on bills under consideration and to propose amendments, where appropriate.
For all that, the intent of the Committee was not for this stage to become a repetition of committee stage. Unlike committee stage during which the bill is considered clause by clause, there was not to be any debate at report stage unless notices of amendment had been given, and then debate would have to be strictly relevant to those proposed amendments. The provisions of the Standing Orders relating to report stage have been amended on a number of occasions since This occurred in response to the flooding of the Notice Paper with hundreds of amendments in respect of certain controversial bills.
Members frequently obtain drafting advice and assistance from the Office of the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel. While there is general agreement that the communications necessary to this process should be treated as confidential, questions of privilege asserting this principle led to the adoption, in March , of a motion referring the issue to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.
Nonetheless, existing administrative practices were modified to reinforce the confidentiality of the drafting process. In order that a motion to amend a bill may be considered at report stage, notice must be given in writing at least one sitting day prior to the commencement of report stage, if the bill was referred to committee after second reading, and two sitting days before, if the bill was referred to committee before second reading.
Monday to Thursday, and before p. The Standing Orders provide one exception to the above notice requirements. A Minister may propose an amendment without notice, if the amendment is in relation only to the form of a government bill.
The purpose of this rule is to facilitate the incorporation into a bill of amendments consequential to other amendments adopted by the committee. It is then up to the Chair to determine whether each such amendment flows necessarily from the acceptance of another amendment, or whether it would change the intent of the bill. In the case of an amendment containing financial implications which requires a royal recommendation, the Standing Orders require that notice of the royal recommendation be given no later than the sitting day before report stage is to commence.
The notice must be printed on the Notice Paper along with the text of the amendment to which it pertains. It is up to the Speaker to decide which amendments will be considered at report stage.
The Speaker rules not on whether the purport of the amendment or its substance is worthy of debate, but rather on whether the amendment is procedurally acceptable within the framework of the rules established for the admissibility of amendments presented at report stage.
At report stage, a bill is examined as a whole and not clause by clause as is the case at committee stage. Generally, the rules relating to the admissibility of amendments presented at committee stage also apply to motions in amendment at report stage. For instance, since when the rules relating to report stage came into force, a motion in amendment to delete a clause from a bill has always been considered by the Chair to be in order, even if such a motion would alter or go against the principle of the bill as approved at second reading, and a motion to amend a number of clauses of a bill has been considered out of order.
At report stage, the Speaker has ruled out of order a motion in amendment that: infringed upon the financial initiative of the Crown; proposed to alter an agreement that was within the prerogatives of the Crown; proposed to amend a statute or a section of a statute not amended by the bill; and proposed to alter the title of a bill when no substantial changes had been made to the bill that would have necessitated a change in the title.
The Chair has also ruled out of order motions in amendment to a bill that was referred to a committee after second reading, although the same motions in amendment would have been admissible had the bill been referred to a committee before second reading. For example, the Speaker has ruled out of order a motion in amendment that: exceeded the scope of the bill or the clause in question; was contrary to the principle of the bill as adopted at second reading; proposed to change the interpretation clause by making a substantive amendment which exceeded the scope of the bill; would amend a statute not contemplated by the bill; would amend, not a clause of the bill amending the parent Act, but a section of the parent Act itself; and was equivalent to a complete negation of the bill.
The Chair has also ruled, that because report stage is not a reading stage, motions in amendment cannot be moved in the form of reasoned amendments, since the latter can be moved only on second and third reading of a bill. Since motions in amendment at report stage are open to debate, they fall into the category of substantive motions that are subject to amendment and subamendment.
Under the Standing Orders , the Speaker has the power to select or group motions in amendment to be proposed at report stage. In the early years of the new rule, Speaker Lamoureux regularly consulted the House before making a final decision as to the admissibility and grouping of amendments. In June , the Standing Orders were changed to provide that only those motions found to be in order by the Speaker were to appear on the Notice Paper.
As a general principle, the Speaker seeks to forestall debate on the floor of the House which is simply a repetition of the debate in committee. Furthermore, the Speaker will normally select only those motions in amendment that could not have been presented in committee.
In so doing, the Speaker will consider whether individual Members will be able to express their concerns during the debate on another motion. On the other hand, the Speaker could, if he or she thinks fit, call upon any Member who has given notice of an amendment to explain it so as to enable the Speaker to form a judgment upon it, but in practice, Members would send a written submission to the Speaker if there were any doubt as to the selection of their amendments for debate.
Motions in amendment are grouped for debate according to two criteria: their content; and their position in the bill. Motions which could form the subject of a single debate are grouped according to content if, once adopted, they would have the same effect in different parts of the bill or if they relate to the same provision or similar provisions of the bill.
Motions in amendment are combined according to the location at which they are to be inserted in the bill when they relate to the same line or lines. These motions in amendment will then be part of a single scheme for voting purposes. 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.
When the Order of the Day for the consideration of a bill at report stage is called, the House first considers any motion in amendment of which notice has been given. Each motion in amendment is open to debate and amendment.
After ruling on the grouping of motions for debate, the Chair reads the motions in the first group or the motion in that group, if there is only one. Once a motion has been moved, it may be withdrawn only with unanimous consent. When the time comes for a particular motion in amendment to be taken up by the House, and the Member who gave notice of it is absent, the motion may not be debated unless it is moved by another Member with the unanimous consent of the House.
During debate at this stage, no Member may speak more than once or longer than 10 minutes on any motion or group of motions in amendment. The sole exception to this is the minute limit applicable to the first round of speeches on the first motion in amendment at report stage of a bill that has not yet been read the second time.
When a recorded division is demanded on any motion in amendment proposed during consideration of a bill at report stage, the Speaker may defer the calling in of the Members for the vote until some or all subsequent motions in amendment to the bill have been debated. In practice, the Speaker usually defers all recorded divisions until the consideration at report stage has been completed.
A recorded division, or divisions, is deferred in this manner from sitting to sitting. The report stage of a bill that has not yet been read a second time is an integral part of the second reading stage of the bill. At the end of report stage of a bill that has already been read a second time, the motion for concurrence at report stage is also put forthwith, without amendment or debate. The wording of the concurrence motion will vary, depending on whether the original bill has been amended or not, and depending on the stage at which the amendments were made.
In any event, for the bill to be concurred in at report stage, a motion to do so must be moved by the sponsor of the bill. If the motion is not moved, the order for concurrence at report stage is discharged and the bill is then dropped from the Order Paper. If no motion in amendment is moved at report stage of a bill that has already been read a second time, no debate may take place and consideration of report stage becomes the simple adoption or rejection of the motion for concurrence at report stage, before proceeding to third reading.
Third reading is the final stage through which a bill must pass in the House of Commons. It is then that Members must decide whether the bill should be adopted by the House. Although third reading is often regarded as a formality, it is in fact a decisive stage in the legislative process. This is particularly so in the case of a highly controversial bill. Third reading and passage of a bill are proposed in the same motion, which may be debated in the same sitting as report stage, if no amendment has been proposed at report stage or if the bill has been reported from a Committee of the Whole, with or without amendment.
Debate at this stage of the legislative process focuses on the final form of the bill. The amendments that are admissible at this stage are similar to those that were admissible at second reading stage. It is also in order to propose an amendment to the third reading motion to recommit the bill to a committee with instructions to reconsider certain clauses for a specific purpose.
When the motion for third reading has carried, the Clerk of the House certifies that the bill has passed and records the date of passage at the foot of the bill. Defeat of a motion for third reading will result in the withdrawal of the bill. Once the House of Commons has passed a bill, a copy of it in the form of a parchment paper is sent to the Senate with a message requesting its passage by that House. When the Senate has passed a bill, it so informs the House of Commons by message.
Because most government bills originate in the House of Commons, the Senate is sometimes asked to expedite its consideration of a bill. The Rules of the Senate provide for a procedure known as pre-study, which involves referring the subject matter of a bill that has been introduced in the House of Commons, but has not yet been adopted at first reading in the Senate, to a standing committee of the Senate.
When the bill does arrive, the Senate is accordingly in a position to adopt or to amend it in a very short time. As always, these and other requests to the Senate are dependent on the willing cooperation of the latter.
When the Senate adopts a bill without amendment, a message is sent to the House of Commons to inform it that the bill has been passed, and it normally receives Royal Assent very shortly thereafter, or during the following few days.
The bill itself is not sent back to the House, unless it is a supply bill. Once they are received, Senate amendments to a bill are brought before the House for consideration. The motion may simultaneously reject some amendments made by the Senate, and concur in or amend others.
The motion must relate exclusively to the Senate amendments, and not to other provisions of the bill not contemplated by the amendments. When debate takes place on Senate amendments, Members who speak must confine themselves to the amendments being considered and may not address other aspects of the bill, or the bill as a whole.
Other Members may speak for not more than 20 minutes and they may share their time with another Member. Motions for time allocation and for closure may be moved by the government to limit or close debate. When the House agrees to Senate amendments, a message to that effect is sent to the Senate and the bill is returned to it while awaiting Royal Assent.
If the House amends or rejects Senate amendments, it so acquaints the Senate by message as well. The Senate may then reconsider its amendments, having regard to the message from the House. It may decide to accept the decision of the House, to reject that decision and insist that its amendments be maintained or to amend what the House has proposed. Regardless of what the Senate decides, it sends another message to the House to inform it of the decision.
Communication between the two Houses continues in this fashion until they ultimately agree on a text. If agreement cannot be reached by exchanging messages, the House in possession of the bill may request that a conference be held.
When a disagreement arises between the House of Commons and the Senate as to the amendments to be made to a bill, there are two possible ways of proceeding: the disagreement may be communicated in a message this is normally the first step taken , or a conference may take place.
Although this practice has fallen into disuse, a conference may be requested by either of the two Houses in the following cases: to communicate a resolution or an address to which the concurrence of the other House is desired; to discuss the privileges of Parliament; to discuss any matter that warrants the use of this procedure; to require or to communicate statements of facts on which bills have been passed by either House; or to offer reasons for disagreeing to, or insisting on, amendments to a bill.
Either of the two Houses may request that a conference be held, as long as the initiator of the request is in possession of the bill or other matter that is to be the subject of the conference. Until , the process relating to the holding of conferences was rather complex. The role of representatives at the conference was limited to communicating the reasons to the representatives of the other House and no discussion was permitted.
The representatives referred to as managers were thereby given the freedom to talk and to negotiate as they saw fit. Although the two Houses frequently transmit messages to each other, they have rarely held conferences. No conference has taken place since , and there have been only 16 since Over the years, the exchange of messages and the appearance of Ministers before House and Senate committees have considerably reduced the need for this procedure, which is nevertheless held in reserve in case of a deadlock in connection with Senate amendments to a bill.
In this event, a Member, usually the Member responsible for the bill, could propose that a message be sent to the Senate asking it to participate in a free conference on the amendment or amendments in dispute. Once the message was approved and sent to the Senate, the Senate would in turn respond to the House by means of a message.
A similar motion would be moved in the House of Commons to designate the representatives of the House who would normally include the Member responsible for the bill and to order that a message to this effect be sent to the Senate. At the time agreed upon, the managers would meet to try to resolve the impasse. The records of proceedings show that in the event that the House was sitting at the time chosen for the conference, the Speaker would rise and announce that the time had come to hold the conference, and the Clerk would announce the names of the managers who would then go to the Senate.
Since no official report or minutes were prepared for those conferences, there is very little information available as to how free conferences were held in the past and on who attended them in addition to the managers from the two Houses.
There are, in fact, three possible outcomes: the conference fails; a compromise is reached; or the House accepts the Senate amendments, or the Senate accepts the House amendments, as the case may be. If a compromise is reached, one of the representatives of the House submits a report to the House concerning the conference and moves that the report be approved and a message informing the Senate be sent to the latter.
Lastly, if the House decides not to press for the approval of its amendments, it accepts the Senate amendments and sends a message to this effect to the Senate.
Royal Assent brings together all three constituent elements of Parliament the Crown, the Senate and the House of Commons. An integral part of the legislative process, it is the stage that a bill must complete before officially becoming an Act of Parliament. The traditional way is an essentially ceremonial procedure which takes place in the presence of Members and Senators, after the Members have been summoned by the Usher of the Black Rod to go to the Senate to attend the Royal Assent ceremony.
Since relevant statutory provisions came into effect in , this formal ceremony is frequently dispensed with and Royal Assent to bills is signified by written declaration. The origins of Royal Assent date back to the reign of Henry VI —61; —71 , during which the practice arose of introducing bills in both Houses in the form of complete statutes, and not in the form of petitions as had been the case since the early days of the English Parliament.
Royal Assent was granted by the Sovereign in person until ; in that year, to spare King Henry VIII the discomfort of having to give Royal Assent to the bill for the execution of his wife, Katharine Howard, the task was assigned for the first time to a royal commission.
Royal Assent was last refused by a Sovereign on March 11, , when Queen Anne refused to assent to a bill for settling the militia in Scotland. In the Canadian House of Commons, while the formal ceremony of Royal Assent has sometimes been criticized, these criticisms were effectively addressed in by the adoption of the Royal Assent Act.
In its retention of the formal ceremony, however, Parliament has remained faithful to conventions expressed in rules derived from those in effect in Great Britain at the time of Confederation. This practice gradually disappeared over time and today Royal Assent is given to bills at any time during a session. Since it was assented to on June 4, , the Royal Assent Act has provided for the signification of Royal Assent by written declaration by the Governor General or his or her Deputy.
New Standing Orders added in require that Members be informed of this in a special issue of the Journals , and that messages received from the Senate during an adjournment be deposited with the Clerk.
Such messages are deemed received by the House the same day. The Governor General may give Royal Assent in person, particularly in the case of laws of great importance. At other times, it is given by a deputy either in person or via a written declaration. When a bill has been passed by both Houses of Parliament, a special copy is inscribed on parchment paper and endorsed by the Clerks of both Houses. The Speaker of the House then relays the message to the Members.
Before entering the Commons Chamber, the Usher knocks three times on the door. Because the House cannot always arrange for its order of business to coincide with the time when Royal Assent is to be given, the messenger is sometimes obliged to wait. When the Usher of the Black Rod has entered and bowed three times, he or she stands before the Table and informs the Speaker of the desire of the Governor General or his or her Deputy that the House attend him or her immediately in the Senate Chamber.
A clerk at the Table in the Senate Chamber then reads, in English and French, the titles of the bills that are to receive Royal Assent, with the exception of supply bills.
If there is a supply bill to be assented to, the Speaker of the House of Commons brings it into the Senate Chamber and reads a message, in both official languages, asking that it be given Royal Assent, using the following formula:.
May it please Your Excellency Honour : The Commons of Canada have voted Supplies required to enable the Government to defray certain expenses of the public service. A Senate clerk at the Table goes to the Bar, is handed the supply bill by the Speaker of the House of Commons, and returns with it to the Table. After reading the title of the supply bill in both official languages, the Clerk of the Senate reads the declaration of Royal Assent as follows:.
The representative of the Crown consents to the enactment of the bills by nodding his or her head. This is the action by which Royal Assent is officially conveyed, and from that moment the bills have the force of law, unless one or more of them specifies another date of coming into force. The Speaker of the House raises his or her hat, bows to the representative of the Crown, and withdraws from the Chamber, returning directly to the Commons Chamber.
The House resumes the business that was interrupted, or adjourns if the hour for adjournment has already passed. Normally, the entire ceremony lasts no more than 20 minutes. The date on which Royal Assent is to be signified by written declaration is determined by the government once a bill has been passed by both Houses.
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