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MPs don’t officially have to vote in order to pass bills in the House of Commons and it appears to be happening more frequently than usual this session of Parliament.
Passing legislation “on division” allows members of Parliament to approve bills without having to register their support or their disapproval.
It essentially means that the parties don’t agree on the piece of legislation in question, but don’t feel the need to have a head count on who supports it and who doesn’t. Instead MPs just agree to allow it to go through.
“On division means that without counting every vote in the room, the room agrees that the motion or the law … can pass with the understanding that not everybody was in favour of it,” said Peter Van Loan, a former government House leader.
MPs can also agree to forgo a vote on a bill or motion if there is unanimous consent to allow it to pass. But that is not the same as passing it on division.
CBC News conducted an analysis of more than two decades’ worth of parliamentary journals examining when MPs opted to allow bills to pass through the House on division. The analysis focused on third reading votes, as it is the final legislative hurdle in the House of Commons, and Parliament frequently allows bills to go through to the committee process without a head count before facing a final showdown.
Since the start of the current parliamentary session, half of the bills that have been put up for a third reading in the House passed without consensus or a head count.
That’s a significantly higher proportion when comparing it to previous parliaments.
During former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s first minority government, a large chunk of the session was held during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The House sat in a hybrid form and moved quickly to pass legislation enacting benefits that were paid out to Canadians who had lost work due to health restrictions — and many of those bills were pushed through on division during that time.
Still, only about a quarter of the bills that passed at third reading during the 43rd Parliament did so without a standing vote.
Why is it happening with such frequency this session?
The current make up of the House of Commons might explain why the parties are more frequently forgoing a head count when there is disagreement on a bill.
The Liberals are just a few seats shy of a majority government and need the support of other parties to pass their legislative agenda.
At least two of the bills that have passed third reading on division — the Budget Implementation Act and December’s supplementary estimates — have been confidence votes. If a head count had been taken and the Liberals lost, then the government would fall and Canadians would likely be heading to the polls for the second time in the span of a year.
CBC News reported last month that the Conservatives and Liberals have been working on potential deals that could prevent both gridlock in the House and another election.
Van Loan said allowing confidence bills to pass on division is a “convenient way” to allow opposition parties to register their objection without risking bringing down the government.
“The on division approach lets the government get what it wants without putting it to a head count and at the same time it allows the opposition to say, ‘Well, we were against it,'” he said.
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s first budget narrowly passed in the House of Commons, keeping his government alive and avoiding a Christmas election.
The Liberals came within a few votes of falling last fall during a budget motion. No recognized opposition party voted in favour of the budget at that time, but a few MPs skipped the vote to allow it to pass.
The Liberals similarly kept MPs home during confidence votes when the party was in Official Opposition while former prime minister Stephen Harper ran a minority government. Van Loan, who was in Harper’s cabinet at the time, recalled the “ridiculous lengths [the Liberals] went to, to try and register opposition without bringing down the government.”
He said “on division is perhaps a little more elegant or mature way of achieving a similar outcome.”
The current House rules require a standing vote if at least one MP from a party that has recognized status in the House — meaning the Liberals, Conservatives or Bloc Québécois — requests a head count.
Other bills that have passed on division this session appear to address issues where Liberals and Conservatives have some agreement — such as bail reform, border security and an income tax cut.
The Bloc, for its part, might also be in favour of some of the government’s bills or otherwise doesn’t feel strongly enough to push the issue.
But Green Party Leader Elizabeth May has repeatedly objected to the major parties not allowing her to register her opposition in a recorded vote, particularly when it’s a confidence matter. May called the repeated use of the on division tactic an “abuse of parliamentary democracy.”
“As long as the Bloc Québécois and the Liberals and the Conservatives are on the same page, it bulldozes right through,” she said during a news conference earlier this month.
Interim NDP Leader Don Davies registered similar concerns when he wanted to register a no vote on the throne speech which passed on division in the spring.
Van Loan said the use of on division passage can be a useful tool, especially when a committee is voting on a bill line-by-line before sending it back to the House.
The former cabinet minister also said using the on division tactic at this specific moment is significant because parties are trying to show that Parliament is functioning.
“I think we’re in an environment where Canadians are looking to see, where possible, the government function and the parties work together to let business happen,” he said.
May suggested reverting to pre-pandemic rules, when a head count was taken if five MPs requested one, regardless of their party’s status in the House.
“New Democrat MPs and Green MPs might indeed want a recorded vote so that our voters know where we stand on legislation,” she said.
