Votes and Proceedings 2008-Apr-02 | Legislative Assembly of Ontario

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Votes and Proceedings 2008-Apr-02 (PDF)


No. 20			N^o²⁰

Votes and Proceedings			Procès-verbaux
Legislative Assembly of Ontario			Assemblée législative de l'Ontario
Wednesday April 2, 2008 Daytime Meeting - Sessional Day 20			Mercredi 2 avril 2008 Séance de l'après-midi - jour de session 20
1^stSession 39^th Parliament			1^re session 39^elégislature

Prayers 1:30 P.M.			Prières 13 H 30
Reports by Committees			Rapports des Comités
The Speaker addressed the House as follows:- I beg to inform the House that today the Clerk received the Report on Intended Appointments dated April 2, 2008 of the Standing Committee on Government Agencies. Pursuant to Standing Order 106(e)(9), the Report is deemed to be adopted by the House (Sessional Paper No. 93).

Introduction of Bills		Dépôt des Projets de Loi
The following Bill was introduced, read the first time and referred to the Standing Committee on Regulations and Private Bills:-		Le projet de loi suivant est présenté, lu une première fois et renvoyé au Comité permanent des règlements et des projets de loi d'intérêt privé:-
Bill Pr7, An Act to revive 827291 Ontario Ltd. Mr. Naqvi.

Deferred Votes			Votes différés
The deferred vote on the motion that this House approves in general the Budgetary Policy of the Government, having been put, was carried on the following division:-
AYES / POUR - 61

Aggelonitis Albanese Balkissoon Bartolucci Bentley Berardinetti Best Bradley Broten Brown Brownell Bryant Cansfield Caplan Carroll Chan	Colle Craitor Crozier Delaney Dhillon Dickson Dombrowsky Duguid Duncan Flynn Fonseca Gravelle Hoy Jaczek Kular		Kwinter Lalonde Leal Levac Mangat Matthews Mauro McGuinty Milloy Mitchell Moridi Naqvi Orazietti Pendergast Phillips	Pupatello Qaadri Ramal Ramsay Rinaldi Sandals Sergio Smith Smitherman Sousa Takhar Van Bommel Wilkinson Wynne Zimmer

NAYS / CONTRE - 30

Arnott Bailey Barrett Bisson DiNovo Dunlop Elliott Gélinas	Hampton Hardeman Horwath Jones Kormos MacLeod Marchese Martiniuk		Miller (Hamilton East–Stoney Creek) Miller (Parry Sound–Muskoka) Munro O'Toole Prue Runciman Savoline	Scott Shurman Sterling Tabuns Wilson Witmer Yakabuski
And it was,
Resolved, That this House approves in general the Budgetary Policy of the Government.

The Speaker delivered the following ruling:- Earlier today, the Leader of the Official Opposition filed written notice with me of his wish to raise a point of privilege, as required by Standing Order 21(c). I would like to thank the Member for giving me sufficient time to review this matter. The Member's point of privilege is related to his contention that the Government is preparing to introduce a tax that was not mentioned in the recent Budget, specifically, a tax on tires. I wish to advise that I will be deciding on this matter without further hearing directly from the Member at this time, as Standing Order 21(d) permits me to do. I have carefully reviewed the Member's written submission and cannot find that he has made out a prima facie case of privilege. The Member's written submission refers to the privilege that Members enjoy of attending in this Chamber and participating in various ways to hold the government accountable for its decisions and actions. I cannot see that the ability of any Member to perform such parliamentary functions is detracted from in the present case. What we have largely amounts to a disagreement, on the part of the Member, with a potential policy direction the Government may choose to follow, or perhaps with the process surrounding the development of this potential policy. To take the Members' perspective, he does in fact have considerable ability to hold the government to account on this matter, perhaps most directly and explicitly through the daily Oral Question Period. This is precisely what he did with the first 2 questions in yesterday's Question Period. I think that is a clear indication that nothing about which he has raised a grievance has affected his very ability to raise the grievance in the first place. He has not been obstructed or hindered in that responsibility as Leader of the Official Opposition. To reiterate, I do not find the Member has a valid point of privilege, but I do thank him for raising this matter and permitting me to address the important topic of parliamentary privilege once again.

The Speaker addressed the House as follows:- Before we start Oral Questions, I would ask the indulgence of the Members to allow me to take a bit of time to clarify the rules around the issue of supplementary questions. Let me first direct the attention of the House to what the rules say about supplementary questions. Standing Order 36(c) provides for supplementary questions "*arising out of the minister's reply". Additionally, in Marleau and Montpetit's House of Commons Procedure and Practice* supplementary questions are described as "a follow-up device flowing from the response…" Successive Speakers since 1975 have affirmed in this House that supplementary questions must arise out of the Minister's answer to the original question and have ruled out of order supplementaries which do not do so. While some degree of latitude has been exercised of late with respect to the relationship between a supplementary question and the original question and answer, it has been my observation that there is a growing tendency for there to be little or no relationship at all. Many questions have been asked this session, from both sides of the House that, although they may be thinly related to the same subject matter, do not arise out of the Minister's reply nor frankly do they even relate to the same ministry. These are really separate questions that should be asked when the Member next has the floor.
Members should take this as notice then that I will be exercising enhanced vigilance with respect to the orderliness of supplementary questions in the future.

Petitions			Pétitions
Petition relating to requesting the TTC to allocate proper funding to build washrooms at their subway stations (Sessional Paper No. P-21) Mr. Berardinetti. Petition relating to Pope John Paul II Day (Sessional Paper No. P-22) Mr. Yakabuski. Petitions relating to the Lord's prayer (Sessional Paper No. P-48) Mrs. Munro, Mr. O'Toole and Mr. Shurman. Petition relating to the practice of competitive bidding for home care services (Sessional Paper No. P-50) M^me Gélinas. Petition relating to the Wye Marsh Wildlife Centre (Sessional Paper No. P-53) Mr. Dunlop. Petitions relating to approving Bill 11 and amending the Smoke-Free Ontario Act (Sessional Paper No. P-55) Ms. Aggelonitis and Mr. Leal. Petition relating to asking the Federal Government to reform the Employment Insurance program (Sessional Paper No. P-57) Mr. Rinaldi.

With unanimous consent, the following was agreed to:-
That the time available until 5:50 for this afternoon's debate on Bill 16 be divided equally among the recognized parties and that at the end of that time the Speaker shall, without further debate or amendment, put every question necessary to dispose of the Second Reading stage of the bill.

Orders of the Day			Ordre du Jour
A debate arose on the motion for Second Reading of Bill 16, An Act to amend Christopher's Law (Sex Offender Registry), 2000.			Il s'élève un débat sur la motion portant deuxième lecture du projet de loi 16, Loi modifiant la Loi Christopher de 2000 sur le registre des délinquants sexuels.
After some time, the motion was declared carried and the Bill was accordingly read the second time and Ordered referred to the Standing Committee on Justice Policy.			Après quelque temps, la motion est déclarée adoptée et en conséquence, ce projet de loi est lu une deuxième fois et renvoyé au Comité permanent de la Justice.

Mr. Bartolucci moved, That the House do now adjourn.			M. Bartolucci propose que l'Assemblée ajourne les débats maintenant.
The question, having been put on the motion, was declared carried.			Cette motion, mise aux voix, est déclarée adoptée.

The House then adjourned at 5:05 p.m.			À 17 h 05, la chambre a ensuite ajourné ses travaux.

le président Steve Peters Speaker

PetitionS Tabled Pursuant to Standing Order 38(a) Petition relating to investing $300 million in Toronto Community Housing (Sessional Paper No. P-56) Mr. Zimmer.

April 2, 2008