The House took last week off, so this week we’ll be discussing something I’ve mentioned a few times: Unanimous consent!
What is it?
Unanimous consent is a powerful tool that the House can use to temporarily change the rules of how the House operates. For example, it was used with Bill C-39 to completely bypass every debate and vote and simply move the Bill straight to the Senate. It was also used to drop C-285, and to move C-278 onto the Order of Precedence in its place.
How does it work?
The use of unanimous consent is simple: An MP just proposes a Motion that asks for unanimous consent to do something. The Speaker will then ask if the House consents and checks for anyone who dissents. This is a bit of an informal vocal-only vote, and if The Speaker is unsure if they’re hearing dissent or people just making noise they’ll ask the question again and remind the House that they need to be clear with their intention. If anyone speaks against the Motion unanimous consent is denied and it fails. No records are kept on who dissented, and it’s considered improper to speculate on or to attempt to figure out who it was.
Restrictions
The main restriction on unanimous consent is that it can never be used to bypass rules set out in the Constitution. For example, though the rules for quorum (a minimum number of MPs need to be present in the House before any business can be addressed) exist in the House’s procedures they were set out in the Constitution, and as such can never be changed with unanimous consent. It also can’t be used to bypass any regulations that the House is subject to.
The other big thing of note is that any Motions passed through unanimous consent don’t count as setting a precedence for something, but they are considered the Will of the House and are binding. So once the Motion for C-39 was granted unanimous consent it must be acted on, the government isn’t allowed to back out of it.