CANADA—SEMINARY OF ST. SULPICE. (Hansard, 18 February 1841)

§ Mr. Pakington,
before the notices of motion were proceeded with, begged to put a question to the noble Lord the Colonial Secretary, upon a matter of some importance as connected with Lower Canada. He would remind the noble Lord that on the 29th of January last certain ordinances, passed by the Government and Council of Lower Canada, were placed on the Table of that House. He wished to ask whether the ordinance relating to the seminary of St. Sulpice was included amongst those so laid upon the table; if so, whether it was necessary that that ordinance should be before Parliament for the space of twenty days prior to any step being taken by Parliament in reference to it; and whether those twenty days were to count from the time at 706 which the ordinance was laid on the Table, or from the time at which it might be printed and circulated?

§ Lord John Russell
stated, that amongst the ordinances laid on the Table of the House, on the 29th January, was included the ordinance respecting the seminary of St. Sulpice, and that the space of twenty days, during which the House was precluded from entering upon the subject, would count from the day on which the ordinances were laid on the Table. With respect to the printing of the ordinance relating to the seminary of St. Sulpice, it was not usual that documents of that nature should be printed.

§ Mr. Pakington,
under those circumstances, felt bound to ask the noble Lord whether it was his intention to have the ordinance printed.

§ Lord John Russell
I shall make no objection to its being printed; but it is not my intention to move that it be printed.

§ Sir R. Peel
thought, that although the noble Lord was not bound to print the ordinance, yet that he certainly was bound to give a notification of its being laid upon the table.

§ Lord J. Russell
could not conceive how a more public notification could be given, than bringing the ordinance up to the Table of the House, laying it upon the Table, and inserting the fact of its being so laid upon the Table in the votes and proceedings of the House.