MPs will be looking at reforms to EI, Old Age Security, federal immigration laws, the controversial $25-billion procurement of 65 F-35 fighter jests and will be scrutinizing the federal government’s massive omnibus budget bill.
“The last four week session, in my experience, is always one of the more challenging ones, but I expect that there are so many substantive issues on the table right now if the political parties are smart and they will focus on the substance,” Government House Leader Peter Van Loan (York-Simcoe, Ont.) told The Hill Times last week.
Summa Strategies vice-president and Conservative pundit Tim Powers agreed. “It is near the end of a long session. The break week came at a good time. I think it is natural at this point in the calendar year that things are a bit acrimonious,” he said.
“The government is probably a little sick and tired of playing defence. But when you have a majority you do that often. Defence is about holding your own and looking to turn around the game and go on offence. I think the government would like to be directing a bit more of the play. I am sure they’ll want to keep picking their game up but it hasn’t been as bad as the bar gossip in Ottawa would have it,” said Mr. Powers.
Liberal House Leader Marc Garneau (Westmount-Ville Marie, Que.) said that the last four weeks before the summer recess will be “chippy” and occasionally raucous. “We in the Liberal Party have never said that we wouldn’t sometimes heckle and that we wouldn’t sometimes express ourselves in strong terms and we will continue to do so,” he said.
Mr. Van Loan said the government’s priorities will be to pass bills C-38, the Budget Implementation Bill; C-31, the Immigration and Refugee Reform Bill; C-25, the Pooled Registered Pension Plans Bill; C-23, the Canada-Jordan Free Trade Agreement and C-24, the Canada-Panama Free Trade Agreement.
“You’ll see us continue to focus on the economy with the primary item of business being the Jobs, Growth and Prosperity Act to implement the budget. Obviously that carries the comprehensive economic plan of the government forward,” Mr. Van Loan said, noting that he hopes the opposition does not obstruct the legislative process. “I don’t expect the NDP to wake up tomorrow and decide they suddenly support the Jobs, Growth and Prosperity Act. I expect them to continue to opposing that, I just hope they do it in a fashion that’s not unduly obstructive and focuses on the ideas within the bill.”
The NDP have started calling the 425-page omnibus budget bill the “Trojan Horse Bill.”
The NDP was unsuccessful at its attempt to negotiate with the government on splitting the bill, which contains changes to almost 70 pieces of legislation and introduces a dozen new ones ranging from the environment to national security. It previously tried to delay a vote at second reading on the bill, which also failed.
NDP House Leader Nathan Cullen (Skeena-Bulkley Valley, B.C.) said in the House recently that in moving time allocation on the omnibus bill, the government is eroding democracy.
“We have now seen the government shut down debate in this House 20 times. Secretive committees in the legislature are becoming the norm. A 425-page omnibus Trojan Horse bill gutting the environment, taking $12,000 out of the pockets of seniors and fundamentally changing how employment insurance works in this country without any consultation or mandate from Canadians is just the most recent and egregious example of their undermining of our democratic values and institution,” he said. “Do the government members have any concerns whatsoever about how their constant and steady erosion of democratic values in this place undermines all our work, both theirs and ours?”
In response, Mr. Van Loan said that debate on the bill has been the longest in at least the 20 years. “We have adopted an approach to doing that to create certainty, not to limit debate so that people know when votes are happening. For example, when we introduced the Budget Implementation Bill, we said the vote would be May 14. We provided for the longest debate ever in Canadian history. That’s what the time allocation measure did. It allowed Canadians that are looking to be able to get the job creation tax credit have a sense of the track it was on,” he told The Hill Times. “We want to see that bill become law before we leave for the summer, so I think ensuring that decisions get made and votes happen on a reasonable track after ample debate is a good approach to managing the House.”
Mr. Garneau disagreed, however, saying that the government has been uncooperative and is abusing its majority. “I would say personally myself that in fact there’s been a kind of aggressiveness and when we have, if you like, fought back, the government has sent signals to us that it’s not going to take that, calling for time allocations and things like that,” he said. “It just feels that it can go ahead and not take into account the fact that the rest of us on the opposition side, although we don’t have as many seats as them, do represent a lot of people and that it’s important that our voices be heard.”
On C-38 and C-31, Mr. Garneau said the Liberals have been working with Green Party Leader Elizabeth May (Saanich-Gulf Islands, B.C.) on introducing amendments in the House to try to delay and raise awareness about both bills. Because Ms. May does not sit on any committees, she is allowed to bring forward substantive amendments that would normally be called out of order because they should’ve been introduced in committee.
“I think our approach is tactically a smarter approach and one that sends a stronger message to the Conservative Party,” Mr. Garneau said. “Those kinds of events certainly make a point. They make a point because it’s not an automatic quick single vote. When a lot of votes have to take place and they go one for quite awhile, usually it attracts attention and when it attracts attention, people say why is this happening? Of course when it’s explained it sheds more light on why we’re doing it, and we hope it’s supported by Canadians.”
Mr. Van Loan said he expects to see these types of tactics, but that Canadians prefer to see their MPs working in “a productive and orderly fashion” instead of playing games.
“We campaigned hard to make these things happen. We believe very strongly in delivering the results on the economy for short medium and long term. We know that’s what our constituents want and I think most of us want to go home for the summer being able to point to some very substantial accomplishments that we’ve delivered for our constituents,” he said. “That’s what I think really motivates our caucus right now.”
Meanwhile, John Fraser, a former Progressive Conservative Cabinet minister and House Speaker, who told The Hill Times that the omnibus bill should be split up and is critical of how it will gut the Fisheries Act, said back in 1982, when Pierre Trudeau’s Liberal majority government introduced an omnibus energy bill in Parliament it caused the opposition Conservatives to walk out of the House and not return for 15 days. The government had refused to split the bill, and after opposition appeals to then-House Speaker Jeanne Sauvé to force the government to split the bill failed, the Conservatives left the House.
The bells calling MPs to vote on the bill remained ringing for the entire two weeks and the Liberals relented, splitting up some parts. When Mr. Fraser, who participated in the walk out, became Speaker in 1986, he said he was asked what he would’ve done in Ms. Sauvé’s place. He told The Hill Times that he would have found a way to order the government to split the bill, and he would do so if he were Speaker today because the government’s omnibus budget implementation bill is “a mistake.”
Original Article
Source: hill times
Author: Bea Vongdouangchanh
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