Roundup: C-10 keeps stumbling

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If there is any bill in recent history that is an object lesson in fucking around and finding out, it’s bill C-10, on amending the Broadcasting Act. Indeed, after the government, with Bloc support, moved time allocation while the bill was in committee, the five hours allotted to finish clause-by-clause consideration was apparently not enough, as it seems yet more MPs on the committee wanted to waste time fighting about things this bill doesn’t actually do. And lo, amendments that were passed after the five hours were up were deemed null and void by the Speaker, so once again, MPs found out.

This doesn’t mean that those amendments are necessarily gone for good – they can certainly be moved at report stage, where the bill is currently, though that may require extending the time allocation that was imposed on the current stage in order to be able to move and vote on said motions – and that leaves yet more opportunity for dilatory actions such as slow-voting and another point-of-order-palooza around remote voting. Barring that, the government can move them in the Senate, though that will be very uncomfortable as it will probably mean having to recall the Commons in a couple of weeks to pass the amended bill, which will be a gong show all around. Or, with any luck, it will be stuck on the Order Paper over the summer, and possibly smothered if the election call that the pundit class is so hell-bent on getting happens. Nevertheless – there is plenty of blame to go around for this state of affairs, not the least of which belongs to the minister for his singular failure to offer coherent communications around this bill at every opportunity, and most especially at committee.

I would add, however, that I have no patience for this notion that the bill saw “no real debate,” as certain individuals are claiming. It got more debate than most budget implementation bills – more than any bill I can remember in recent memory. Granted, we have no guarantee of the quality of debate, and considering that this bill has been the subject of a campaign of conspiracy theories (Internet Czar, anyone?), straw men, red herrings, and outright lies, while substantive and existential problems with the bill have largely gone unremarked upon, I can see a critique that the months of debate were short on substance. That said, I’m not sure how even more debate would have helped, other than to prolong the agony.

Good reads:

  • For his last day in Brussels, Justin Trudeau visited the Pfizer manufacturing facility to think them for providing millions of doses to Canada.
  • Trudeau and everyone else who accompanied him on the tour now gets to quarantine in an airport hotel in Ottawa for the next three days.
  • The prime minister also named five new MPs to NSICOP to fill vacancies.
  • Here is a look at what we’ve learned about the Delta variant of COVID, and how this relates to vaccinations and future outbreaks.
  • Dominic LeBlanc is signalling that there may be news on easing border restrictions as of Monday, as western premiers grouse for federal leadership.
  • With six sitting days left before summer, the government tabled their bill to modernise the Official Languages Act.
  • The acting Chief of Defence Staff was apparently aware his vice-chief was in contact with senior officers like General Jonathan Vance to “check on their mental wellness.”
  • The Lobbying Commissioner tabled her annual report, noting record levels of lobbying activity in the last year, along with her usual requests for more powers.
  • The Ethics Commissioner ruled that ousted Liberal MP Yasmin Ratansi broke the rules in hiring her sister to work for her office.
  • The joint parliamentary committee on reviewing the assisted dying laws has finally gotten underway, and will review both the past six years as well as next steps.
  • The Bloc used their Supply Day motion to make another attempt at getting federal support for Quebec’s Bill 96 on language laws and amending the constitution.
  • The Green Party’s national council held an emergency meeting last night to discuss triggering a leadership review of Annamie Paul.
  • Paul Wells interviews outgoing Supreme Court Justice Rosalie Abella, plus gets a look at her office with all of its legendary artwork.
  • Kady O’Malley’s Process Nerd column explains the various procedures taking place to get the government’s priority bills passed before the House rises next week.
  • Heather Scoffield wonders if there is hypocrisy in the government focusing on phasing out coal but not natural gas for electricity generation.
  • Susan Delacourt is concerned that Justin Trudeau is too silent as three different premiers are bashing at the constitution, two of them invoking Section 33.
  • My column pans Erin O’Toole’s blatantly unconstitutional plan to appoint “elected” senators from processes like Alberta’s farcical one.

Odds and ends:

https://twitter.com/SusanDelacourt/status/1404914162107625475

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2 thoughts on “Roundup: C-10 keeps stumbling”

  1. I think C-10 might still make it through under the wire, but C-7 has been the subject of just as much bad-faith hyperbole about “totalitarianism,” including and especially (and shamefully) from the ostensible so-called “progressive” NDP. IMHO it still doesn’t go far enough, in that it still restricts foreign applicants, which Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg do allow. Canada is going to have to prepare for an influx of women fleeing Gilead to seek abortion care in the near future. It’s inevitable, with the direction their Supreme Court is going. On humanitarian grounds, I think it would be beneficial to permit foreign travellers to have access to medically-assisted dying as well.

  2. “…if the election call that the pundit class is so hell-bent on getting happens.”

    So, when Justin pulls the trigger for the election he so desperately wants, he gets to blame it on the “pundit class,” does he?

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