Federal Budget 2012: MPs forgo shoes, resort to chocolate as marathon voting session continues

OTTAWA—They ate chocolate-covered coffee beans, shared a celebrity gossip magazine, switched their contact lenses for eyeglasses, took off their shoes, fell asleep in public and danced in their chairs.

Some thought the exercise was a waste of time, while others felt their country slipping away one lost vote at a time.

Bleary-eyed MPs continued a marathon round of voting on 871 opposition amendments — combined into 159 votes — to the omnibus budget implementation Bill C-38 that began after midnight on Thursday and was expected to stretch past midnight the following day.

“We’re also very conscious that as we go through all these votes, these are not just symbols. These are real things that are happening to the laws that guide Canada,” New Democrat House Leader Nathan Cullen told reporters at the halfway mark Thursday afternoon.

“Be it protection for our environment that is being reduced, Employment Insurance that is being lost or pensions that are being taken away, or the very fact that democracy is being undermined by this government, continuing to believe that ramming through a bill like this is good policy and good politics. We disagree,” Cullen said.

Opposition parties put forward the amendments as a way to bring attention to the sweeping legislative changes lumped into the omnibus bill, which they argue is a way for the Conservatives to make controversial social and economic changes without proper scrutiny.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, who sponsored the bill, officially called the Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act, dismissed the whole thing as a political game.

“I think most Canadians, quite frankly, want us to move ahead with our economic agenda. They realize we have a fragile global economic recovery and this is not a time for gamesmanship,” Flaherty told reporters on Thursday, before expressing frustration with NDP efforts to further slow the process by rising slowly to their feet to be counted for each vote, which he said was “wasting taxpayers’ money.”

More: MPs share their thoughts, jokes on Twitter during C-38 votes

Liberal House Leader Marc Garneau acknowledged that opposition MPs would not succeed in getting their amendments passed, but believed their efforts at bringing attention to the omnibus federal budget bill were worth it.

“It is definitely a moral victory, but I am getting a sense that Canadians realize the government has abused its power,” Garneau said.

With the parliamentary calendar declaring it would remain Wednesday until the Commons was adjourned, MPs from all parties struggled to stay awake — not always successfully — and remain comfortable throughout the long hours of rising to say yea or nay.

NDP MP Glenn Thibeault was wearing the requisite tie and jacket when he strolled back into the House of Commons between votes on Thursday morning, but he was wearing only socks on his feet.

“I’ve got sensitive feet, I guess,” Thibeault said by way of explaining his incomplete outfit. “Off come the shoes. It’s the only thing I can take off, really, without being out of order.”

Original Article
Source: the star
Author: Joanna Smith