The bill, among other things, makes it easier to gain approval to build pipelines under rivers, similar to the Plains Midstream Canada pipeline currently spilling oil into the Red Deer River.
Under the existing legislation, there is prohibition on “the harmful alteration, disruption or destruction of fish habitat,” which has been used by federal fisheries officers and biologists as a blanket excuse for banning development near water.
The pendulum will swing to the other extreme under the new provisions.
Unless there’s a danger of killing fish in a commercial, recreational or aboriginal fishery, you’re pretty much free to befoul the water, at least from a straight read of the law.
The reforms to the Fisheries Act seem the most poorly written in the mammoth budget bill and would have benefited from more consideration than the 14 hours they received at a parliamentary sub-committee, where the government rebuffed all opposition amendments.
Many of the other changes may prove timely, if the world economy is set to turn as sour as the Prime Minister appears to think. The “one project, one review” should streamline the environmental process, rather than neuter it.
Timelines on panel reviews are overdue and limiting standing at those reviews to “persons who have relevant information or expertise” should exclude the professional whingers who would previously have had a platform as “interested parties.”
But it would have mattered little if the bill had been riddled with poorly written legislation. There is no room for the kind of flexibility that the government showed on its refugee bill, when it amended its own plan to hold “mass arrival” refugees in detention for a year.
The opposition had suggested 871 amendments. Andrew Scheer, the Speaker of the House, ruled Monday that a number would not be selected for votes and the remainder grouped to reduce the number of times MPs have to stand in their place to a maximum of 159. Given the House can get through around six votes an hour, MPs face spending a 24-hour voting session in sweltering temperatures later this week. There are some big, beefy boys on the Conservative back-bench who will all be obliged to be there until the bitter, and perhaps pungent, end to make sure the government isn’t toppled.
The Speaker could have spared them the ordeal, had he sided with Elizabeth May, the Green Party leader, who claimed that the budget bill had not been brought forward in proper form and should be set aside. Essentially, she was asking Mr. Scheer to set the precedent of ruling all future omnibus bills out of order. The Speaker is not opposed to doing things, he’s just wary about doing anything for the first time.
As it was, he had the perfect cover, in the form of a ruling by former Speaker John Fraser from 1988, where he said that “until the House adopts specific rules relating to omnibus bills, the Chair’s role is very limited and the Speaker should remain on the sidelines.”
Thomas Mulcair, the NDP leader, was not wrong when he said the bill represents “an undemocratic shift.” Yet, if the goal was to fly a bunch of controversial changes under the radar, this manoeuvre has proven as successful as an F-35 trial flight. The opposition party’s protestations would be an exercise in futility were it not for the attention they have drawn to the issue.
Still, all the opposition parties (save the Greens) bear some responsibility for the sorry state of affairs.
Bob Rae, the interim Liberal leader, appeared to disagree with the Speaker’s ruling, saying that if the Conservatives wouldn’t rule out omnibus bills, it would be down to a future Liberal government. “We are going to have to change the way Parliament does business. To me, it is not a decision that makes good sense.”
Mr. Rae preferred to ignore the 13 years of Liberal majority, where they had ample opportunity to bar the use of omnibus bills. And they might have done so, had they not been so fond of them. In the years of Conservative minority, the opposition parties could have banded together to limit budget bills to changes in spending but failed to do so.
So now we can anticipate long summer evenings of MPs voting in the House.
Which evenings, we don’t know because Peter Van Loan, the government House Leader, isn’t saying.
It’s all stinks a bit like some of the fish likely to be floating in the Red Deer River before too long. It’s certainly far removed from the idealism expressed by Conservatives like Mr. Van Loan in opposition.
As he said of a similarly cynical move by the Liberals in 2005: “A major reason I became politically active was because many in my family (I’m Estonian) lost their lives or freedom at the hands of the Soviets or Nazis. I believe our democracy is fragile and something we must cherish and defend. Thursday, June 23, 2005, was a sad day for democracy in Canada.”
Plus ca change…
Original Article
Source: national post
Author: John Ivison
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