Speaker of the House of Commons Greg Fergus ordered Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s latest omnibus budget bill to be split up into nine separate votes, according to Blacklock’s Reporter. “Bill C-59 should indeed be divided for the purpose of voting,” said Fergus at a House of Commons session. “The objective here is not to divide the bill for consideration purposes but to enable the House to decide questions that are not closely related separately.”Bill C-59 ran to 542 pages. It amended 22 separate Acts of Parliament. Fergus said separate groups of Bill C-59 “will be grouped for voting.”“In all, nine votes will be held,” he said. Bill C-59 was introduced in November and is waiting on second reading in the House of Commons. Freeland said it had to pass soon. “I would like to kick off this parliamentary session by urging all MPs to support the Fall Economic Statement Implementation Act and to do so quickly,” said Freeland.Fergus’ ruling followed a Conservative filibuster of Bill C-47 in the spring. Bill C-47 ran to 430 pages and amended or introduced 51 Acts of Parliament. Opposition MPs stalled passage of it through 667 roll call votes. “We’re in a bit of a low trust environment,” said Conservative MP Philip Lawrence (Northumberland-Peterborough South, ON). Omnibus budget bills have long drawn protests from MPs. The NDP introduced Bill C-654 to restrict omnibus bills in 2015. Bill C-654 lapsed without debate. They have grown from 452 pages in 2012 to a record 1,411 pages for two budget bills in 2018. “If we have 5,000 clauses with the Liberals bulldozing through this legislation, we may be looking at nine seconds per consideration of each sub-clause,” said NDP MP Peter Julian (New Westminster-Burnaby, BC). “This is absolutely ridiculous.”
