Grab-Bag Legislation

"We are firmly committed to getting this bill through and we will have it passed before we rise for the summer.

"We intend to win every vote.  We intend to pass this very important set of budget measures."  government House leader Peter Van Loan

Omnibus bills are commonly used in the United States.  And if the Opposition in the House feels outraged by this budget Bill C-38, they'd absolutely detest the kinds of throw-it-in, throw-it-all-in-there, kind of accommodation made for regional representation and popular/unpopular, important/absurd issues that get thrown together in omnibus bills in the U.S.

But omnibus bills are not unknown in Canada, either.  The previous Liberal governments used them with no qualms expressed whatever, when it suited their purposes.  So here's another one, a multi-purpose piece of legislation that includes a whole whack of issues.  Most of which are reasonable and do express the will of the people by a good margin.  Some of which most definitely do not.

A majority government need not go to the public to ask its permission to include certain pieces of legislation in such a cover-all Bill, and this government has not done so.  Though it might have been of legislative value if they had hearkened to their own advisers, let alone the chorus of scientists and previous ministers of the environment that have responded negatively - and, it seems, with good reason - to proposed changes to the country's environmental and fisheries laws.

The government's budget implementation legislation is inclusive of the re-write of over 70 laws impacting on the economy, environment, social services.  Once enacted they will stay there.  Until possibly, at some future date some other government will re-think some of them and certainly at such a time those which prove to be inimical to the country may be overturned.  Not a nice legacy for the current government to leave behind.

We have immense natural resources, and at the moment, those resources resulting from petroleum and other fossil-fuel-type issues represent as monumentally important for this country's growing trade, our internal needs in manufacturing, transportation and the heating and cooling of buildings.  Extraction methods, while unpopular with environmentalists, have proven to be fairly sound, and do we really need a loosening of standards to satisfy a perceived need to keep running with what we've got?

So, here's a determined and well-publicized filibuster on the near horizon, with Elizabeth May, leader of a party that has no official standing in Parliament, yet legally entitled as an elected Member of Parliament to do her damnedest, doing it..  And she intends to, handsomely.  Despite which, the bill will go through, addressing issues as diverse a EI, Old Age Security eligibility, border security, food safety, and CSIS, among others.

We can bet this will be a whipped vote.  Preceding the vote, the majority Conservatives have already been well whipped into obedience to the party's direction; at the government's stern behest.  A lot of intelligent people on either side of the border between rejection and acceptance will be going speech-to-speech, battling fatigue, and presenting a spectacle to behold.

And then history will record that this bill was passed, because there is a majority government.  And the voters will yawn and get on with life.