Government compromises on Standing Orders changes, takes PM’s Question Period off the table
PARLIAMENT HILL—Government House Leader Bardish Chagger is putting her motion proposing changes to the Standing Orders of the House of Commons on the notice paper tonight, and it includes walking back the government’s plan to add a weekly Prime Minister’s Question Period to the rules. The final text of the motion is the result of […]
Conservatives, NDP threaten government with more than 30 hours of votes if it pushes unilaterally on House rule changes
PARLIAMENT HILL—The Conservatives are threatening to force the House into more than 30 hours of votes tomorrow on the government’s main estimates if it doesn’t back down on using its majority in the Commons to unilaterally change some of the House rules. Conservative House Leader Candice Bergen (Portage-Lisgar, Man.) placed hundreds of votes on today’s […]
Budget bill will increase service fees with less accountability, say critics
As the Liberal Member of Parliament for the federal Ontario riding of Etobicoke North from 1996 to 2008, Roy Cullen had the relatively rare accomplishment of having a private member’s bill pass with strong support in both the House of Commons and the Senate. In 2004, Bill C-212, An Act respecting user fees, received royal […]
Conservative House tactics won’t change under Scheer, says Bergen
New Conservative Party Leader Andrew Scheer’s previous experience as House Speaker and opposition House leader means he understands the implications of changing the House Standing Orders and is further entrenched to oppose them, says Conservative House Leader Candice Bergen. “He understands what we’re up against with the kind of the bullying and the heavy-handedness that […]
An opportunity to rethink federal support for official language communities
OTTAWA—In the last year, Canadian Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly has led cross-country consultations on the next multi-year action plan for official languages. While the outcomes of that consultation are expected later this year, we believe the time is right for a more fundamental review of how the Government of Canada supports official language minority communities. […]
House leaders brace for jam-packed, late-night legislative push in final ‘high-octane’ weeks of spring sitting
PARLIAMENT HILL—In the last legislative push before the House rises for the summer, the government wants to wade well into the debate on the suite of marijuana legislation, pass the budget bill, introduce new legislation on political financing and anti-terrorism, and implement contentious new rules on how the Commons works, despite resistance from opposition parties. […]
Note to MPs: it doesn’t have to become ‘silly season’ on the Hill
The wind-down of a parliamentary session before the summer break has notoriously garnered the reputation as “silly season” on Parliament Hill when governments rush to get through their budget implementation bills and line up and knock out a number of other legislative priorities to pad their productivity records while the opposition parties take every opportunity to slow […]
Senator pushing to resurrect sit-downs with House over controversial bill changes
An Independent Senator is trying to bring an out-of-use procedural tool back into style, to make sure Senate amendments to government bills get a fair hearing in the House. Sen. Diane Griffin (Prince Edward Island) is working to build support in the Upper Chamber to take a closer look at the use of conferences between […]
Feds move for four weeks of House midnight sittings, NDP says it’s ‘not very family friendly’
PARLIAMENT HILL—When MPs return to the Hill next week they will be burning the midnight oil as the government tries to push its legislative agenda through the House before the summer recess, but the New Democrats are saying the schedule is “not very family friendly.” “Thinking of the fact that we have young mothers in our caucus, and given […]
Sajjan didn’t need to burnish his brand with fiction
OTTAWA—Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan knows the danger of self-inflicted wounds. He recently maimed himself when he went against his own brand. Nothing his political opponents will try is likely to have the same impact on his political career as his own recent self-aggrandizing. When Sajjan came into politics as a decorated military veteran and hard-nosed […]
