Queen’s University professor Ned Franks sided with the Commons opposition parties on Wednesday as they prepared for an overnight marathon of voting in a last-ditch filibuster, accusing Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) and his government of “playing games” in an attempt to prevent MPs and the public from understanding and revealing the true effect provisions in the 425-page bill, C-38, will have on environmental, legal and economic traditions of the country.
“It’s contemptuous of Parliament, because it gives Parliament a minimal and last-minute role in examining and discussing on behalf of Canadians very important national issues,” Prof. Franks told The Hill Times in an interview. “What it looks like to me, from the outside, is that they’re playing games to avoid careful Parliamentary scrutiny, and I would have thought that any reasonable government would be proud of its legislation, and its budget and would welcome Parliamentary scrutiny.”
Prof. Franks, who has often appeared as an expert witness in House committee testimony, provided evidence to the Procedure and House Affairs Committee last year which eventually concluded the Conservative government was in contempt of Parliament for refusing to provide the House Finance Committee with detailed information on a range of issues, including acquisition of the F-35 stealth fighter jet and expected new costs for the justice and correctional system because of a range of crime bills the government had proposed.
Prof. Franks argued it is not just the limited study of the Budget Implementation Bill, C-38, but also the way the government used time allocation to cut short debate at every stage in its passage through the House. The government passed a motion earlier this week limiting the final two stages of debate, including consideration of the main Finance Committee report from witness hearings to a total of only 18 hours, with the final vote to take place next Monday.
“I’m going to offer you two thoughts. One, that legislation should come before Parliament in a form that Parliament can digest and, two, the government should leave adequate time for Parliament to study legislation before it’s passed. Neither of those two principles is observed in the bill itself and how government is handling it,” Prof. Franks said.
He acknowledged Commons Speaker Andrew Scheer (Regina-Qu’Appelle, Sask.) was legally correct when he ruled earlier this week the bill was compliant with House rules and precedent, despite its size and sweeping nature, but said that is no excuse for the government to ram the legislation through, with a goal of getting it through the Senate and into law by the end of next week.
Part of Mr. Scheer’s ruling on a point of order from Green Party Leader Elizabeth May (Saanich-Gulf Islands, B.C.) who argued the bill was presented in an imperfect form was based on the fact that the short title of the bill—the Jobs, Growth and Long-Term Prosperity Act—was so sweeping it could be seen to cover elements of the legislation that were not directly mentioned in the budget the government tabled March 29.
“It’s in order, but it’s still outrageous. They are two totally different things,” Prof. Franks said. “The government could introduce a bill moving some ridiculous thing, like All Mortgages be Abolished. It might be in order but it’s stupid.”
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty (Whitby-Oshawa, Ont.), firing off a last-minute broadside himself, told journalists after the government’s weekly caucus meeting on Wednesday that Liberal and NDP MPs, aligned in the marathon voting protest alongside Ms. May, were “posturing” and the filibustering tactics threatens Canada’s economy. The opposition have forced 159 votes over more than 1,000 proposed amendments.
“Their attempt at more than 1,000 amendments hinders our progress and threatens Canada’s economic growth and prosperity,” said Mr. Flaherty, without elaborating on the argument. “Canadians want their government to focus on what matters, jobs, growth and long term prosperity.”
When asked whether the government was using a “bullying” strategy, Mr. Flaherty broke into a lengthy defence of the way the government has handled the legislation. “Come on,” he said. “We’ve had more debate on this budget bill than any of my budget bills.”
He also explained that he sat through extended House time until midnight on Tuesday and with seven and a half budgets under his belt (he noted the government introduced two budgets last year), he said what he saw was “pure posturing.”
“If there were some substantive argument, then I could understand that, but we’ve had more than 50 hours in the Finance Committee. If they have something serious to say, it ought to have been said by now,” Mr. Flaherty said. “Instead it’s just political posturing, and I’m a politician and I know it’s easy for politicians to say that, but I’m also the Finance Minister. I know what’s going on in the world, and it’s a matter of substantial concern. It’s a long answer, but I think we really do need to get on with it.”
Mr. Flaherty, who claimed the bill has received more debate than any previous budget bill in the past 20 years, concluded with advice he had been given about how to prepare himself for the round-the-clock voting that was set to begin within hours.
“In terms of what we’ll do tonight, the best advice I got this morning was dark chocolate, to stay awake I mean,” he said.
The House Finance Committee and the sub-committee to study the “responsible resource development” provisions studied the bill for 54.5 hours, excluding clause-by-clause approvals in the final phase. But, as with other committee experiences the opposition has protested in this Parliament, the nine hearings by the main Finance Committee and five hearings by the sub-committee on environmental clauses were jammed with witnesses, leaving individual MPs little chance to question experts in detail.
On May 28, the main body of the Finance Committee heard evidence for six hours from a total of 34 government and private-sector witnesses.
After the government tabled the budget on March 29, it did not introduce the budget implementation bill in the House of Commons until April 26 and then began the first phase of debate on May 2, passing a time-allocation the next day. The first House vote was held on May 14, after seven days of debate. The government sent the legislation to the Finance Committee on May 14, and the committee reported its findings back to the Commons on June 7, after a period that included a week-long House adjournment.
Interim Liberal Leader Bob Rae (Toronto Centre, Ont.) harshly criticized the government at a news conference on Wednesday, after his announcement that he would stay on as interim party leader rather than resigning to run for the party’s permanent leadership position. He said even though the Conservatives were inevitably going to defeat the opposition parties over their last-minute amendment motions, the battle will help draw public attention, which Mr. Rae said could linger through to the next federal election.
“I think the vote reflects, frankly, a sense of revulsion on the part of the opposition, with what this government is doing to Parliament and what it’s doing to the political process in Canada, and I think we’re struggling with what can we do,” Mr. Rae said, accusing the government of using “subterfuge” to impose sweeping changes it wants to make to Canadian governmental and economic and social regimes.
The government “attempts to do all of this by means of subterfuge, by pretending that this is all part of some minor budget bill, which it is not,” said Mr. Rae.
He said the budget “drives a Mack truck through a whole set of institutions and legitimate expectations that Canadians have with respect to how their governments will operate. It’s a terrible piece of legislation and we’re going to fight it every way we can.”
Original Article
Source: hill times
Author: Tim Naumetz
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