22 consecutive hours of voting in the Canadian House of Commons came to an end at around 11:30 p.m. on June 15th with an unsurprising result. Bill C-38 passed the House of Commons. The Conservative caucus erupted with cheers and applause as Stephen Harper stood up to begin the final vote that would pass the bill. Every single Opposition MP in the House, NDP, Green, Liberal and Independent voted against the bill but even this rare show of cooperation in Parliament was not enough to overcome the all-powerful Harper majority.
C-38, commonly referred to as the Omnibus Bill, is supposed to be the Budget Implementation Bill. It is meant to bring into regulation, the terms of the budget that was introduced by the government on March 29th. That’s what C-38 is supposed to do. What it actually does is make broad and sweeping changes to over 60 different regulations, many of which are unrelated, to each other as well as to the actual budget. In fact, over three-quarters of this so-called “budget bill” actually deals with changing Canada’s environmental regulations. This includes ending the Canada Environmental Assessment Agency, repealing the Kyoto Protocol, and completely changing the Fisheries Act. That’s just the start. And then there are the direct violations of democratic principles hidden within the bill. The bill reduces the Auditor-General’s power to hold governments accountable for their actions, removes independent oversight from 12 agencies including the Canada Revenue Agency. The bill also allows the FBI to come into Canada and arrest Canadians on Canadian soil. Overwhelmed yet? Shocked? Too little, too late.
Opposition to the bill has been strong and outspoken and has come from all sources including the media to Members of Parliament, former politicians (many of them Conservative) and Premiers, including Alberta Premier Allison Redford. On June 4th, charitable organizations across the country blacked out their websites as a sign of protest.
The Canadian public rarely involves itself in what is happening on Parliament Hill, but this bill has managed to rouse anger in even our generally apathetic populace. On June 13th, all across the country, people joined together at the offices of their local Conservative MP’s to show their opposition to the bill. The local Waterloo demonstration was held at Conservative MP Peter Braid’s office and had about 50 attendees, ranging from students to senior citizens. There were even two ex-professors from Laurier in attendance. Anita Nickerson, who organized the local rally said “I don’t want to tell my daughter that I stood by and did nothing.” Much of the crowd gathered echoed her sentiments. Despite the general agreement that a Conservative majority almost guaranteed the bill would pass, they were not willing to stand quietly by as it happened.
The purpose of the demonstrations, which was termed “13 Heroes”, was to call upon the principles of individual Conservative MP’s rather than the government itself. They were looking for 13 Conservative MP’s to stand up to their party and do their job. MP’s are meant to represent their constituents, not their parties, and their votes should reflect the beliefs of their constituents. The movement began after Conservative MP David Wilks was caught on camera stating that he believed the bill should be split up and allowed to be debated separately. He lamented the fact that an individual MP could not make a difference and even hinted that he would consider voting against the bill if 12 other MP’s did so with him. Since the Conservatives only have a 13 seat majority, this would ensure the bill does not pass. Wilks later retracted his statement and claimed that he was in 100% support of the bill.
But if 13 people with such principles exist they are not found in the Conservative caucus. The passing of the bill has brought new light to a major flaw in Canadian “democracy.” Partisanship. If a person had tuned into CPAC during the 22 hours of voting on the bill, they would have seen a divided house. On one side sat the government, on the other, Opposition. And for every vote that was taken every MP voted in the exact same way as every other MP on their side. Every single Conservative MP voted no, to the 800 amendments to C-38 proposed by the opposition. As in, 167 Conservative members all agreed with each on 800 different issues. Can they truly expect the public to believe that? If one went searching it would be difficult to find 167 random people that agree on even one issue, let alone 800 of them. Yet, somehow the Conservative Party has managed to do this?
MP’s are simply afraid to vote against their party, for fear of being kicked out or passed by for promotion. In short, they are serving their own interests rather than doing their job. Their job is to serve the Canadian public and primarily their own constituents. The Canadian public spoke out loudly and clearly against the bill. Yet, the bill passed. Is that democracy? No, in fact, it is the exact opposite of democracy.
That the Harper Government insisted on pushing this bill through, regardless of the strong and vocal opposition to it, is a clear abuse of power. It is clear that the Harper Government believe that a majority in the House means they can do as they please and it is also clear that plan on doing just that. C-38, though it will have massive repercussions and will cause irreparable damage to Canada’s environment is only the beginning. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is already threatening another Omnibus Bill in the fall and we still have 4 years left to go in this Conservative majority. It will be a long 4 years and I fear that at the end of it, Canada will be unrecognizable.
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