Conservative sources say once controversial legislation is passed, the government will prorogue Parliament and introduce a new Throne Speech and budget when the House resumes business in 2012.
PARLIAMENT HILL—The government will likely limit debate on a controversial bill it tabled Tuesday to dismantle the federal long-gun registry as it continues to muscle legislation through Parliament to clean up the “backwash” of five years of minority stalemate in the Commons, Conservatives say.
If the government imposes time allocation to get the registry-termination Bill C-19 through House debate, Conservative-dominated committee hearings and into the Senate, it will be the sixth time in this Parliament that Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Calgary-Southwest, Alta.) and his majority Conservatives have used either closure, in the case of back-to-work legislation for postal workers last June, or cut short debate through time allocation in the House to get long-promised conservative policy passed into law.
One Conservative said if all goes as expected, with major bills speeding through Parliament like freight trains, the government will have gone through its Throne Speech commitments, as well as most remaining election promises, and be in a position to end the current session of Parliament and deliver a new Throne Speech setting out Mr. Harper’s “long-term agenda” next year—possibly before the March budget.
“It’s moving smartly, and so by the close of the session they should be significantly through many of this sort of cleaning up the backwash from seven years of minority issues, and so then they have an opportunity to, if the government chooses, they have an opportunity to hit the reset button and some time in 2012 come with a new Throne Speech that sets a longer-term agenda,” the Conservative source said.
Asked if the new session with a new long-term agenda could begin before the budget, expected anytime between Feb. 15 and March 15, the Conservative replied: “It could be then, it could be in the fall. It probably depends on getting the backwash sort of wound up and cleaned up.”
But in the meantime, as Treasury Board President Tony Clement (Parry Sound-Muskoka, Ont.) continues to oversee a massive government operating review that has been charged with identifying $4-billion in government spending cuts in time for the budget, Liberal MP David McGuinty (Ottawa South, Ont.) told The Hill Times his sources in the capital informed him the cuts will be “very, very serious” and that the government wants to clear the decks beforehand by steamrolling its controversial bills through Parliament as quickly as possible.
“What I’ve been hearing from a number of people is that they anticipate very, very serious cuts in the budget, in the public service, that the early noise about attrition was always known to be debunkable very quickly, that the budget is going to be very difficult, that the numbers are high. They’re going to have to cut pretty hard, and they’re going to get that done very early in the mandate so that [voters] will forget,” Mr. McGuinty said.
Critics said the government has been forging ahead with some of its most controversial bills—including the gun registry legislation and an omnibus crime bill the House sent into committee hearings on Sept. 28 after the government cut debate short the previous day—to quickly appease the Conservative Party's right-wing support, which has been a principal source of its electoral success through four closely-fought election battles and a major driver in the party’s substantial fundraising lead over the opposition parties.
Opposition MPs say the determination with which the Conservatives are pushing the bills through Parliament flies in the face of evidence that some of the policies, including a range of stiffer penalties in the crime bill and the elimination of the long-gun registry, might exacerbate problems in the justice system and result in higher crime rates or reduce public safety.
The gun registry, administered by the RCMP and supported by the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, now contains records of 7.8 million firearms and 1.8 million gun owners with valid licences. Police agencies queried the registry an average of 17,400 times daily over the first three months of this year, compared to more than 4,000 times daily in 2004, the latest RCMP statistics show.
“The trouble with this government is they are ideologically unable to do anything that’s evidence based,” Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett (St. Paul’s Ont.) told The Hill Times.
The legislation for which the Conservatives have cut short debate also includes its first budget implementation bill last June, after one day of debate, another budget bill in early October, which included the elimination of government subsidies for federal political parties, and a bill to end the Wheat Board’s power to sell wheat abroad for western Canadian farmers through a pool system for farmers. That bill passed out of the Commons into committee for hearings on Monday this week.
A Conservative told The Hill Times debate limits are likely to be imposed on the gun registry legislation. NDP MP Yvon Godin (Acadie-Bathhurst, N.B.) said the opposition also expects that to happen.
“They’ve been doing it with everything else. They don’t want to have a debate going on, a good debate,” said Mr. Godin. “It’s a new government and I think people have the right to debate it. They’ve been elected to come here and debate bills, not just shoved down the throat by the government. That’s why Parliament exists.”
Mr. McGuinty said the government is speeding things through to prepare for the budget, and focus on getting it through Parliament.
“It’s going to be coasting, just keep it going, nice and even, don’t ruffle any feathers, get this stuff done, no drama, keep Harper international, make him look like a statesman, grow his stature, and then get ready for a tough budget,” said Mr. McGuinty.
Conservative commentator Geoff Norquay, however, said the government is simply getting its house in order as it delivers on numerous campaign promises it could not steer through the past minority Parliaments.
“There are a number of high profile campaign promises that are being checked off, the Wheat Board, the gun registry, matrimonial property rights on aboriginal reserves, criminal justice omnibus bill, human smuggling bill, senate reform, seat redistribution,” Mr. Norquay told The Hill Times.
“In other words, there are sort of eight or 10 initiatives that were long since signalled by the government as having high priority and were in one way or another held off by the minority situation.”
Origin
Source: Hill Times
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