M-79 – Amendments to the Standing Orders – is a Motion that would clearly outline what Confidence Votes are and when they can be used.
Normally I wouldn’t do a full post on a Motion, but M-79 would have a significant impact on the House so I feel it’s worth getting its own post.
First there’s an important note on Confidence in the House. It turns out that with a handful of exceptions Matters of Confidence are very poorly defined and open to interpretation. For example, a Budget Bill is considered a Confidence matter, but the ruling party can also declare any other Bill to be a Matter of Confidence. There’s no rules on how much notice needs to be given for this, nor is there anything on what Bills can be designated a Matter of Confidence or how often the government can do it. They could declare every vote on a government Bill a Confidence vote if they wanted.
We’ve also seen that Confidence votes can easily be dodged, as several governments in the past have simply prorogued Parliament to block a Confidence Vote. There’s nothing in the rules to stop this.
Now one important thing to remember with a Confidence Vote is that the government losing one of these votes doesn’t always trigger an election. The Prime Minister resigning can also be an outcome to a failed Confidence Vote, as can the ruling party handing power off to one of the other parties.
M-79 would clearly outline how Matters of Confidence work by adding the rules to the Standing Orders, which cover how Parliament operates.
Confidence Motions
So first up M-79 covers how Confidence Motions work. These can come in two forms, either a Motion of Confidence or a Motion of No Confidence. After a Confidence Motion is announced there will be a four day delay before it’s debated. When the Confidence Motion comes up for debate it will be the first thing debated for the day and takes priority over everything else. Nothing else will happen until the Confidence Motion has been voted on, it cannot be delayed, and the vote will happen at the end of the day at the latest.
A Confidence Motion can be sponsored by any MP, but they will need the support of 20 other MPs representing more than one of the major parties. Only one can be announced per supply period (there are three of these in a year), and no MP can sponsor more than one Confidence Motion in a session.
Government Matters of Confidence
If anything that isn’t a response to the Throne Speech, a Budget Bill, or a Matter of Supply (a Bill that moves money for spending) is declared a Matter of Confidence any MP can have it sent straight to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs for consideration. The Committee would then get to go through the item and decide if it should be a Matter of Confidence before sending it back to the House.
Prorogation
M-79 makes several changes to how prorogation works when it comes to Matters of Confidence.
First up, if the Prime Minister declares that they intend to prorogue Parliament a Minister can immediately call for a Confidence Motion which will be debated the next day. When this happens the Minister is the only person who needs to sponsor the Motion, nobody else is needed. If this happens while the House is on break 48 hours’ notice will be given of a special sitting to resolve the Confidence Motion.
Finally, in the event that Parliament is prorogued while a Matter of Confidence is waiting for a vote the first order of business when Parliament returns will be a Confidence Motion.
New Sessions
The last thing that M-79 does is require the government to hold a Confidence Motion as the first thing it does when a new session of Parliament begins. This could easily mean that immediately after an election occurs the Prime Minister could be forced to resign because they don’t have the support of the House. (It could also result in a second election being called immediately, but I don’t see anyone trying to push for that option).
Misc
There’s a bit more in M-79 but it’s mostly just housecleaning to put references to Confidence Motions and the new Standing Orders where they need to be. Brian Masse (NDP, Ontario, Windsor West) proposed an amendment to M-79 but it’s all just changing some of the wording to make it easier to follow.
Vote
M-79 went up for a vote and failed with 55 in favour and 269 voting against.
| Party | For | Against | Paired |
|---|---|---|---|
| Liberal | 0 | 153 | 3 |
| Conservative | 0 | 115 | 1 |
| Bloc Quebecois | 30 | 0 | 2 |
| NDP | 22 | 0 | 0 |
| Green | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Independent | 2 | 0 | 0 |
The Liberals opposed M-79 as they feel the existing system works well enough. Confidence votes can’t
The Conservatives don’t like the idea of restricting how Matters of Confidence are handled by putting them in the Standing Orders. They also don’t like that it could give the Speaker power over MPs, as it’s the Speaker’s job to interpret and enforce Standing Orders. There’s also been several writings in the past saying that Matters of Confidence aren’t an issue of procedure, and references to them have been removed (and added) to the Standing Orders several times before.
The Bloc Quebecois support M-79 as it very clearly prevents a number of abuses of Confidence that have happened in the past. One complaint they mention is that during the previous Session the Liberals had a habit of just declaring Bills to be a Matter of Confidence the day of the vote on them, so they couldn’t properly prepare for them.