You’re right - the Senate Hansard only came on-line in 1996. However, I did find that Senator St. Germain has posted Senate Debates that he was interested in on his web-site, under “Archives.” That includes the first page of the Speaker’s ruling [pdf] in 1995 - but it only gives the Speaker’s introductory comments, not his actual ruling. Looks like they only posted the first page, not the full thing.
In any event, the Speaker ruling the bill out of order is an internal parliamentary check, of the sort pointed out by matt_mcl. I agree with matt that it’s highly unlikely that such a bill would ever get enacted, because it would run contrary to centuries of parliamentary traditions and modern understanding of human rights and due process. My post was addressing the “what-if” - what if somehow the bill did pass Parliament - is there a basis for the courts to declare it unconstitutional?
That is *very *interesting. You know, I think I’ll head to the Grande Bibliothèque tomorrow or in the next day or two and see if I can hunt down the full discussion, and/or the 1984 reference mentioned in the PDF.
Thanks for digging those out, matt. It establishes that bills of attainder are currently not available as a matter of parliamentary procedure, which confirms your earlier post on the political unlikelhood of such a bill ever passing. I suppose the Commons or Senate could revise their rules to allow them, but I agree with your analysis that that is politically highly unlikely.
The ruling of the Speaker can be challenged, can it not? (What if a parliamentarian attempted to do something completely wacky, something for which no form existed, for example, and the Speaker nixed it, but his/her ruling was successfully challenged?)
However, if the members disagree with the Speaker’s ruling on the interpretation of the Standing Orders, they can amend the Standing Orders for the future, as explained in the detailed article on the Standing Orders:
So if a majority in the Commons wants to amend the Standing Orders to allow for an Act of Attainder, they could do so. That wouldn’t overrule the decision of the Speaker of the Commons with respect to the Clifford Olson bill, but it would change the rules for the future. If a member tried again to introduce a bill of attainder, the ruling on the Olson bill would not apply, because of the change in the Standing Orders.
That’s in the Commons. It looks like the Senate still preserves the right of Senators to appeal a ruling of the Speaker of the Senate, as set out in the Rules of the Senate of Canada:
So the Senator who proposed the Homolka bill could have appealed the Speaker’s ruling to the Senate as a whole. Alternatively, the members of the Senate could change their own rules to allow attainders in the future.