The Numbers

Before looking at the statistics a few preliminary points must be kept in mind.

• Legislative counsel are required to give priority service to Members who are making their first PMB’s request of the session.  Otherwise, these Bills are drafted on a first-come, first-served basis.
• While there were 295 Members of Parliament in the 35^th Parliament (1994-97), and 301 members thereafter, only individuals who were not ministers or Chair occupants constitute the client group for drafting PMB’s. This group consisted of 261 members in the 35^th Parliament and 265 in the 26^th Parliament.
• We must distinguish between new and recycled PMB’s.  A new bill is one that was not drafted or introduced in the House in an earlier session.  A recycled bill was drafted and prepared for introduction, and in some cases was introduced, in an earlier session.  A bill that is to be recycled must nonetheless be reviewed by legislative counsel and possibly redrafted in part where the law has changed.  As a rule, it takes less time to prepare a recycled bill than it does to prepare a new bill.

As shown in the accompanying table in the first session of the 35^th Parliament (1994-96), House legislative counsel received 438 requests for a PMB, of which 366  were for new bills and 72 for recycled bills.  Of the 438 requests, 297 were completed and made ready for introduction in the House, of which 166 were introduced.  Of these bills, half were drawn for debate, 14% were designated as votable, 8% were approved by the House on a vote at second reading, less than 2% were adopted by the House at third reading and received royal assent and became law.  The table shows the corresponding figures for the later sessions.

Only 16% of the PMB’s introduced in the first session of the 35^th Parliament were recycled bills.  The 35^th Parliament saw a change of government and a significant change in the membership of the House.  For this reason, the number of Private Members in the 35^th Parliament who had introduced a PMB in the previous 34^th Parliament was lower than it otherwise would be.  In later sessions the number of new PMB’s decreases while the number of recycled PMB’s increases.  In 36/2, as much as 83% of the PMB’s introduced in the House were recycled bills.  There had not been a change of government or a significant change in the membership of the House between these sessions.  

In 36/2 as many as 79 PMB’s were introduced in the House for a third time, another 27 for a fourth time and 8 for a fifth time.  Session 36/2 was a session during which there was widespread expectation of dissolution for a general election.  This proved to be the case after the session had lasted only one year.  It might be supposed that some Private Members, anticipating a general election soon, wanted to be visibly responsible, as a matter of record, for a legislative initiative important to his or her riding and for this purpose revived legislative initiatives from previous sessions.

The average page length of PMB’s was fairly consistent across the four sessions, though it is important to note that the upper end of the range is significantly higher.  The average length of the longest 25% of PMB’s is on average twice the overall average and three times the average for the shorter 75%.  While PMB’s are invariably much shorter and less complex than Government Bills, length is not necessarily indicative of legal complexity nor can it be said that bills of similar length take the same time to prepare.

Most PMB’s amend existing Acts of Parliament.  In 35/1, 70% of PMB requests were to amend an existing federal statute.  In 35/2, it was 76% and then again 70% in each of the two sessions of the 36^th Parliament.  In each of the four sessions, the Criminal Code was the leading target: 19%, 18%, 15% and 16% of PMB requests in each session, respectively.  In second place is the Income Tax Act at 6%, 4%, 6% and 7% and in third place, the Employment Insurance Act at 3%, 2%, 3% and 3%.

What is not indicated in the accompanying table is the use of PMB’s by Members in each of the recognized political parties in the House.  Those who might think of PMB’s as opposition bills should know that 45% of the PMB’s introduced in the House in the 35^th Parliament came from the government side of the House.  This figure went down to 35% in the 36^th Parliament.  The Official Opposition Members (Reform Party and then Canadian Alliance Party), at 20%-22% of the eligible client group in both Parliaments, introduced 35%-39% of the PMB’s.  Bloc Quebecois Members, at 20% of the client group in the 35^th Parliament and 17 % in the 36^th Parliament, sponsored 12% of the PMB’s introduced in the House in each Parliament.  NDP Members, at 3.5 % of the client group in the 35^th Parliament, sponsored 8% of the bills introduced in that Parliament.  At 7% in the 36^th Parliament, NDP Members were responsible for 10% of the PMB’s introduced in the House.  The Progressive Conservative Members, being only 2 in number in the 35^th Parliament, did not get on the scoreboard in that Parliament.  In the 36^th Parliament  with 15 to 20 Members or 5% - 7% of the client group they sponsored 3% of the PMB’s.

The other profile that emerges from the statistics, though not in those included in the accompanying table, is the number of Private Members who requested more than one PMB.  In 35/1,   60 of the 139 Private Members requesting a PMB made 3 or more requests and were responsible for 75% of the PMB’s requested in that session.  This group constitutes 23% of the client group of 261 Private Members in 35/1.  In subsequent sessions, these figures were 52 Members (20%) being responsible for 76% of the requests in 35/2, 78 Members (29%) being responsible for 80% of the requests in 36/1 and 58 Members (22%) being responsible for 78% of the requests in 36/2.  In other words, it is a minority of Private Members that generates a majority of the requests for PMB’s.

A more difficult phenomenon to measure in numbers is turnaround time, that is, the time between legislative counsel receiving a request from the sponsoring Member and delivering back to the Member a bilingual bill ready for introduction in the House.  Without spending an inordinate amount of time, it is not possible to determine a “net” turnaround time, that is, turnaround measured in working days only.  Accordingly, the turnaround times reported in the table are calendar days, that is, include weekends, statutory holidays and annual leave.

The Office of the Law Clerk tries to monitor the amount of time taken at each of the three stages in the preparation of a PMB, namely, pre-drafting, drafting and post-drafting.  The pre-drafting stage is generally the time a PMB request waits for attention on legislative counsel’s desk.  If not a priority first request, each request must wait its turn (and legislative counsel must at all times give priority to drafting Private Member’s amendments to Government Bills for use at committee stage or report stage).  There was an average pre-drafting wait of 10 calendar days in 35/1, 13 days in 35/2, 8 days in 36/1 and 16 days in 36/2.  The increased time waiting in 36/2 might be explained by the increased demand for amendments at report stage during this session.

In session 35/1, the drafting stage on average took 50 calendar days, 40 days in 35/2, 78 days in 36/1 and 42 days in 36/2.  Why the increase to 78 days in 36/1?  This was due to an increased demand for amendments at both committee stage and especially report stage during this period coupled with the fact that the legislative counsel complement was still at the 1994 level of two lawyers and had not yet increased to its present level of four.

The post-drafting stage includes translation of the final draft PMB into the second language, editing review by legislative editors and formatting into the dual-column format required for introduction in the House.  The average time for this stage was 5 days in 35/1, 11 days in 35/2, 23 days in 36/1 and 12 days in 36/2.  The increased average post-drafting turnaround time in 36/1 corresponds with the increased drafting turnaround time in this period, perhaps for the same reason.

Turnaround time differs considerably as between new and recycled PMB’s.  The latter must wait their turn along with the new PMB’s but once at the drafting stage they usually take less time.  The average turnaround time for a recycled PMB over the period 1994-2000 was 53 calendar days and for new PMB’s was 118 days.  The average turnaround time by political party indicates an average of 60 days for both Liberal Members and Reform/Canadian Alliance Members, 47 days for Bloc Quebecois Members, 64 days for N.D.P. Members and 55 days for P.C. Members.

Over the seven-year period 1994-2000, the average turnaround time on PMB requests that went to completion, that is, were made ready for introduction in the House at first reading, was 59 days.  This breaks down to an average of 10 days at the pre-drafting stage (waiting in line), 33 days in drafting (which includes consultations with the sponsoring Member on drafts and waiting for comments or further instructions) and 16 days in post-drafting (translation, editing and formatting).

One might ask how the past four sessions since 1994 compare with earlier sessions.  From 1968-1969 to 1999-2000, there were 22 parliamentary sessions over a period of 32 years.  Using sitting days as a basis for a comparison of sessions in respect of PMB’s, session 28/1 (1968-69) had 0.8 PMB’s per sitting day, session 30/1 (1974-76) had 0.7 PMB’s per sitting day, session 32/1 (1980-83) had 0.8 PMB’s per sitting day, session 34/3 (1991-93) had 1 PMB per sitting day and session 36/2 (1999-00) had 2.3 PMB’s per sitting day.

It would appear that the rate of PMB’s per sitting day went from 0.8 in the late 1960s to 2.3 by the end of the 1990s, a tripling over the 32-year period.  However, the increase is not in a straight-line progression.  The rate of PMB’s per sitting day, over the 22 sessions and 32 years, is usually between 0.5 and 1.5.  It is higher where the session is comparatively short as most PMB’s are introduced in the earlier part of a session.  Comparisons made between different sessions must use sessions of comparable length.

In the current session, 37/1, at the time of writing, the House has been sitting for 152 days and 235 PMB’s have been introduced for a ratio of 1.6 PMB’s per sitting day, the 7^th highest of 23 sessions since 1968.  Comparable sessions are session 30/3 (1977-78), 25 years ago, which had 151 sittings days and 1.8 PMB’s per sitting day and session 2/28 (1969-70), over 30 years ago, which had 155 sitting days and 1.3 PMB’s, per sitting day.

Notes:

1. Includes all Members except Ministers, the Speaker and other Chair occupants.
2. Terminated PMB’s are ones that were withdrawn, put on hold or cancelled by the sponsoring Member before completion.
3. The only firm numbers here are those for Private Members’ Business and those for Private Member’s Bills as these hours are recorded by the Private Members’ Business Office. The weekly schedule of the House totals 33.5 sitting hours, of which 5 hours (15%) are scheduled for Private Members’ Business, 5 hours (15%) for Question Period/S.O. 31 and approximately 1.5 hours (4.5%) for Routine Proceedings, the balance (66%) is scheduled for Government Orders, including the Business of Supply. On this basis, the hours given in the Table for Government Orders (including Business of Supply) are estimated with reference to the hours recorded for Private Members’ Business as 15% of the scheduled sitting week. The hours estimated for Question Period/S.O. 31 and for Routine Proceedings are included in the estimated total House time for each session but not included in the breakdown as not relevant.
4. Based only on PMB’s that were completed and sent to the sponsoring MP ready for introduction in the House.
5. Includes hours given to both Private Members’ Motions and PMB’s.

In the end, the numbers suggest that 75% of “eligible” Private Members in the Canadian House have little or no interest in using a Private Member’s Bill as an arrow in his or her parliamentary quiver.  Is this because the process holds very little prospect of a worthwhile result, i.e., becoming law?  Might this change if more time were made available for Private Member’s Bills?  Despite only 25% of Private Members using PMB’s, there are more PMB’s introduced in the House than could ever be debated even if the time were increased significantly.  Should the House reduce the time allowed for debate on each PMB to, say, one hour to enable more of them to be debated?  If all PMB’s were subject to a vote, would this cause more Private Members to introduce a PMB?