Government House Leader Peter Van Loan (York-Simcoe, Ont.) said the governing Conservatives’ priorities will be the economy, passing the budget implementation bill and moving trade and copyright legislation forward.
The House will also be busy dealing with economic legislation, including a budget implementation bill, as well as two free trade agreements, said Mr. Van Loan.
“Our government remains focused on the economy. Our top legislative priority is implementing important measures of Canada’s Economic Action Plan 2012,” he told The Hill Times via email.
Mr. Van Loan also said the government would be introducing the budget implementation act, “in the coming weeks” though the exact date the legislation will hit the House has not been set.
NDP MP Joe Comartin (Windsor-Tecumseh, Ont.), his party’s new democratic reform critic and former House leader, said his party will also be focusing on the economy, but from a very different point of view than the Conservatives. He said the New Democrats will continue to grill the government on the effect of more than 19,000 positions and $5.2-billion that are being cut out of the federal public service.
Mr. Comartin also said that his party would be making sure that Auditor General Michael Ferguson’s explosive report on the cost of F-35s fighter jets stays on Parliament’s, and the public’s, radar. Earlier this month, the AG reported that the government misled Parliament about the cost of the jets, and sided with Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page who put the jets’ price tag at $25-billion, instead of the government’s publicly-stated $15-billion.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.), Defence Minister Peter MacKay (Central Nova, N.S.) and Associate Defence Minister Julian Fantino (Vaughan, Ont.) have been lambasted by the opposition, and have called for their resignations.
Rumours began circulating in Ottawa last week that a June Cabinet shuffle may be in the offing because of the scandal.
Last week, the House Public Accounts Committee convened a special session to start a probe into the F-35s.
The NDP also isn’t forgetting the robocalls scandal and the ongoing allegations of electoral fraud being investigated by Elections Canada. New developments continue to be revealed regularly by the media and have provided rich fodder for New Democrat and Liberal attacks in Question Period.
Mr. Comartin said the NDP would be continuing to push the Conservatives to introduce electoral fraud legislation before the House adjourns for the summer mid-June. Mr. Comartin said the legislation would likely entail amendments to the Criminal Code as well as telecommunications legislation.
“They’re on a six-month timeline, they voted with us on that, to get that legislation ready so we think they should be able to have it at least in draft form ready for first and second reading by the end of June,” he said.
If the pressure mounts he said he wouldn’t be surprised if the Conservatives tried to deflect attention from these hot topics by introducing a piece of crime legislation.
“I always joke they have lots of sections of the Criminal Code that they haven’t amended yet. The list is almost infinite,” he said.
Mr. Comartin said that he had expected to see the budget implementation this week, but its absence on the schedule means it will likely be introduced in the first week of May, which he says is later than usual.
He added that the economy will also be a House priority for the NDP, and the party will continue to press the government on economic development and the effect of cuts to the federal public service.
Canada’s economic interests abroad will also be tackled this sitting with the debate of two free trade agreements Canada has negotiated with Jordan and Panama, Mr. Van Loan stated.
The Canada-Panama Free Trade Agreement faces opposition from the New Democrats who are concerned about that country’s record on labour, environmental and human rights, said Mr. Comartin.
He said NDP MPs would be continuing to rise in the House to speak on the agreement.
“We have a number of caucus members that are quite concerned about that one. The Jordan one less so,” he said.
The Canada-Jordan Free Trade Agreement could be passed before the summer session. It has passed second reading March 5 and is currently at the House International Trade Committee.
A recent Supreme Court ruling may have set back the Conservative government’s plans for its controversial lawful access bill, says Mr. Comartin.
Bill C-30, also known as the Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act, would give police the power to demand telecommunications companies hand over subscriber information without a warrant.
It was introduced to great controversy in February, when Public Safety Minister Vic Toews (Provencher, Man.) said that any opponents to the bill stand “with the child pornographers.”
While Parliament was on a two-week break, the Supreme Court unanimously decided to partially strike down federal legislation that allowed police to wiretap phone lines without a warrant, and without telling the wiretapped person, in an emergency situation.
Mr. Comartin said that the judgment has big implications for C-30, the government’s controversial internet surveillance bill, which received its first reading in the House Feb. 14.
“It’s a very clear statement from the court that they are not going to tolerate the kind of legislation that C-30 encompasses around giving police authority to access all that information without a warrant,” he said.
He said he thinks the ruling means that C-30 has been sent back to the drawing board.
“What we’re hearing on that is we’re probably not going to see it again for some time,” he said.
Julie Carmichael, press secretary to Mr. Toews, said the government is “reviewing the court’s decision carefully to determine next steps.”
The bill will be sent to committee before second reading “for a discussion on how to best protect Canadians from online crime while respecting the privacy of law-abiding Canadians” she stated, adding that it would be inappropriate to comment further at this time.
On Monday, April 23, the House will have its last day of debate on Bill C-31, the Protecting Canada’s Immigration System Act, before it is voted on at second reading. The Conservatives introduced a time allocation of six days on the debate.
Mr. Comartin said that though time was limited in the House on C-31, the NDP has already developed a strategy for witnesses against the bill when it’s studied in the House Citizenship and Immigration Committee.
Meanwhile, Mr. Van Loan said two other pieces of legislation round out the Conservatives’ priorities for this four-week stint of the House until it breaks again on May 21 for a week and then returns for its final four weeks before it takes a three-month summer break.
Bill C-25, which would enable the creation of pooled registered pension plans, and C-11, the Copyright Modernization Act, have both passed through their respective committees and are at report stage in the House before going up for a third reading.
Ideally, the government would like to see these passed before the summer.
In the Senate, three bills should be seeing progress this sitting. They are S-6: the First Nations Elections Act, S-8: the Safe Drinking Water for First Nations Act and S-9: The Nuclear Terrorism Act.
Bill S-6 is at its third reading in the Senate, while both Bill S-8 and Bill S-9 have received first reading.
The Safe Drinking Water for First Nations Act was progressing through the Senate and made it to the Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples before it was halted with the election last May. It was re-introduced this February.
The Nuclear Terrorism Act would implement changes to the Criminal Code in keeping with two international treaties that Canada has signed on to: the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material and the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism.
Liberal Senate Leader James Cowan (Nova Scotia) said that he hopes that Senators will be able to engage in debate and study of legislation without facing more time allocation or closure.
In the Senate, the government has used time-limiting procedures on Bill C-18, the bill to end the Wheat Board’s monopoly, as well as Bill C-19 ending the Long-Gun Registry and C-10, the Omnibus Crime Bill, according to Mr. Cowan.
“We are supposed to be the Chamber of sober-second thought,” he said. “Nobody is trying to delay anything here, we’re just trying to do our job.”
By Mr. Comartin’s count, the government has used closure or time allocation to limit debate on bills 17 times. He said he expects to see it again on more contentious legislation, such as the immigration reform bill and the budget implementation bill.
Original Article
Source: hill times
Author: JESSICA BRUNO
No comments:
Post a Comment