The NDP is filibustering the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement legislation and obstructing the work of the House, says Government House Leader Jay Hill, but NDP MPs say it's their right to oppose "bad" legislation.

The debate could go on indefinitely unless there is a motion to limit the time for debate on the amendment. The motion would have to be supported by a majority of MPs, however, and Mr. Hill (Prince George-Peace River, B.C.)said he could not get support from any of the opposition parties to do this.

"In a minority, I obviously require support from one of the other parties. The Bloc is opposed to that as well, so the only hope is if the Liberals would support time allocation otherwise the NDP can just filibuster forever," he said. "The best I could've done was limit the debate in other words move a time allocation in addition to that no more amendments be entertained, but the Liberals would not support that, and between the three parties, they had enough MPs to stand and defeat my motion."

In addition, Mr. Hill said moving a motion to end debate completely cannot be done when the House is debating an amendment.

"You have a situation where a small party like the NDP can basically tie up a piece of legislation forever," said Mr. Hill, noting that Bill C-23 has had more than 30 hours of debate so far and it's still at second reading in the House.

The bill implements the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and Colombia, which the government signed in Lima, Peru on Nov. 21, 2008. The bill was introduced on March 26, and since then has been called for debate nine times. Both the Bloc Québécois and the NDP are against the bill and introduced an amendment and a sub-amendment to it on May 25, 2009.

The Bloc Québécois amendment, introduced by Bloc MP Serge Cardin (Sherbrooke, Que.) stated that the "House refuse to give second reading to Bill C-23, ... because the government concluded the agreement while the Standing Committee on International Trade was considering the matter, thereby demonstrating its disrespect for democratic institutions."

NDP MP Jean Crowder (Nanaimo-Cowichan, B.C.) moved a sub-amendment the same day to add, "that the amendment be further amended by inserting after the word 'matter' the following , 'including having heard vocal opposition to the accord from human rights organizations.'" The House has been debating the sub-amendment since.

In his Thursday statement on Oct. 8, Mr. Hill criticized the NDP for holding up the legislation with procedural motions. "Bill C-23, the free trade agreement between Canada and Colombia, began second reading debate on May 25, five months ago. Thanks again to the NDP, we are still debating it at second reading," he said. "We keep seeing the NDP leader on television, telling Canadians that he wants to make Parliament work. However, in this House, his main operative, his House leader, is doing everything she can to make Parliament dysfunctional. I would suggest that he should either stop running his television ads or actually do what he is telling Canadians and make Parliament work."

NDP House Leader Libby Davies (Vancouver East, B.C.) said, however, that her party has always opposed the bill and will continue to do so. The NDP is not making Parliament dysfunctional, she said, they're simply doing their jobs. "The record will show that from day one, the NDP was always clear that we opposed that bill and that's our right to do so. It's not like all of a sudden we said, we're not going to support this bill and this is about making Parliament dysfunctional," she said. "We oppose that bill because we think it's bad legislation and that's legitimate. It's part of our democratic process in Parliament, representing Canadian people."

Before the House broke for the Thanksgiving recess, however, Mr. Hill moved a motion that no more amendments or sub-amendments would be allowed to be introduced on the bill. He asked for unanimous consent, but did not get it, so he used Standing Order 56(1) to pass it. The standing order states that if no more than 25 members in the House stand to oppose the motion, it is passed automatically. The Liberals supported the motion, so it was passed.

Bloc Québécois MP Mario Laframboise (Argenteuil-Papineau-Mirabel, Que.) moved a point of order saying that the government was out line in using that standing order. "I am certainly willing to recognize that the government is being innovative with the wording of its motion, but the fact is that this motion is basically designed to limit debate," he said. Chief Government Whip Gordon O'Connor (Carleton-Mississippi Mills, Ont.) responded, however, that the government was "using it accordingly." The Speaker has yet to rule on the point of order.

The bill is "critically important" for Canada and Colombia and the NDP should at least let it go to committee for debate there, "instead of taking up time in the Chamber," Mr. Hill said. "Obviously we're a party, and I thought the Liberals as well that believe in the merits of free and open trade, and there's certain sectors in our economy in particular the farmers that could take advantage of freer trade with countries like Colombia," he said.

NDP MP Peter Stoffer (Sackville-Eastern Shore, N.S.) said on Oct. 9, that the NDP are not against trade deals, but they are looking for fair trade deals. During debate in the House, he said that labour, environment and human rights issues have not been addressed in the free trade agreement with Canada and Colombia. "Everyone knows that Colombia has one of the worst workers' rights records in the world. Everyone knows that a unionist in Colombia does not have a very long shelf life, as they say. The reality is that the paramilitary, with the backing of the government and others, has supported basically the riddance of some union members and other people on the left who wish to speak up for social rights, justice and the environment," he said. "The fact is we, in the NDP, and others, and I assume the Bloc as well, are opposed to these deals because they completely ignore the human rights element and environmental aspects in Colombia."

Mr. Hill said because of the filibuster, however, that there's "very little cooperation between parties right now" and it's hypocritical for the NDP to be saying that it wants to make Parliament work and then hold up legislation.

"This is the party that up until a couple of weeks ago when they got scared of an election bragged about how many times they had voted non-confidence in our government since last fall. Suddenly they're interested in making Parliament work? It's absolute nonsense," he said. "What I'd like to do is get onto some justice legislation and put those before the House. Maybe we can find some issues to agree on. The opposition parties from time to time try to talk tough on crime and crime issues, but we'll see what happens when we get more of our criminal justice legislation before the House."

Ms. Davies told The Hill Times last week that Mr. Hill is being disingenuous because "he knows full well we've been opposed to that bill from day one." Ms. Davies said, "If we can keep talking against it, we'll do that. Our members feel very strongly about it and so does the public." She also said that it's the government's fault for any "dysfunction" because they are not communicating properly to the opposition on its priorities. "Really, what we've had so far is very little by way of legislative initiatives from the government," she said. "Even now the Liberals are suddenly backing off from their high and mighty 'election at any cost.' They seem to have suddenly gotten the word from Canadians that this was not what people were expecting. I don't know whether that changes the tone of the House, maybe there's more opportunity to actually talk about things we could work on that are priorities for people."

bvongdou@hilltimes.com

The Hill Times