OTTAWA—The federal Conservative government is shifting the way lawmaking is done. Private member’s bills — which get less legislative analysis or parliamentary debate than government bills — are the new black.
Since Sunday, four private member’s bills that make changes to criminal and corrections law have been publicly backed by the government as good additions to its tough-on-crime agenda.
Here’s what the latest batch would do: create a new criminal offence for recruiting young people into gangs, levy $5,000 fines or jail terms up to 10 years for wearing a mask or face paint at a riot (five years if it’s an “unlawful assembly”), give federal prison officials more authority to dismiss inmate grievances by deeming them “vexatious” or “frivolous,” and set up a forced debt recovery scheme for inmates who win money from lawsuits against the Crown to require payment of outstanding child support, restitution orders or victim surcharges.
Another private member’s bill on Wednesday moved toward the final stage of Commons approval, to loud applause from Conservative benches. Bill C-304 would repeal Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act and prevent rights claims based on hate speech from being brought before human rights commissions.
The bills may all be fine in principle, but opposition critics see them as the new political tool of a government bent on appealing to its base while side-stepping public accountability.
Sponsored by backbenchers, not ministers, private member’s bills can make significant changes in areas of federal public policy, yet because they are drafted with the help of Library of Parliament counsel they do not go through the usual justice department scrutiny.
They are not subjected to the department’s analysis for constitutionality, regulatory impact or cost versus benefit. Nor are they subject of memoranda to cabinet for consideration by the full ministry — a process that may flag important regional, departmental or political concerns.
The Star has learned that although the government is publicly backing the bills, it does not allow Department of Justice lawyers to appear to publicly testify about the constitutionality of those bills.
Federal lawyers who came to a meeting Tuesday of the Commons public safety committee stammered their way through opposition questions about whether inmate debt recovery proposals pass constitutional muster.
In the end, committee vice-chair and NDP critic Randall Garrison revealed that the committee’s request for additional expert witnesses was turned down by the department “because of their possible future involvement in constitutional litigation resulting from the bill.”
Justice Minister Rob Nicholson’s press secretary Julie Di Mambro suggested in an emailed reply to an interview request that it isn’t the justice department’s job to explain the constitutional implications of private member’s bills.
“The Department of Justice is mandated to provide legal advice to the government. officials (who) appear regularly at committee meetings to explain government legislation and are more than willing to do so when it is appropriate.”
Former Liberal solicitor general Wayne Easter said Jean Chrétien’s Liberal government frequently adopted ideas raised in caucus for criminal justice reforms but, he said, they were then “brought forward as government bills.”
The Conservatives, he says, “are bringing them in through the back door.”
Easter concedes there are some advantages: advancing a policy through a private member’s bill gives a minister ammunition to push back against a department or Privy Council that may be cool to an idea. But he believes the Conservatives are using the bills “to appease their political base.”
NDP justice critic Françoise Boivin — a former Liberal MP in the minority Paul Martin government — said while all parties like to see friendly measures advanced when an MP wins an early spot in the lottery to introduce a private member’s bill, even the Liberals in a minority government did not do an end-run around the usual criminal lawmaking procedures.
She believes the Harper government has backed private member’s bills when it offers a tactical advantage.
“They see it as another tool to control even more the message and the agenda,” she said, but she deplored how it displaces the role of a private MP to raise their own issues. In committee, she said, the government side almost never adopts any helpful amendments — even from the other side.
Under a minority government, the Conservatives used Candice Hoeppner to sponsor a bill to kill the long-gun registry, which it calculated would lead to a free vote among opposition parties divided on the issue. Only after it won a majority government guaranteeing passage did the government actually bring in a government Bill C-19 to do the same thing.
But private member’s business has at times been a political headache for Harper. Conservative MP Stephen Woodworth’s motion to have a committee review the Criminal Code section that says a fetus does not become a human being until birth is complete.
“Every private member can table bills and motions in the House,” said Harper, who says he’ll vote against the Woodworth motion. “Party leaders don’t have any control over that.
Still, Harper does control the government’s agenda and which bills it chooses to support. So far, it has shown only impatience with the usual parliamentary process. The Conservatives pushed passage of an omnibus crime bill that consolidated nine laws, including reversing amendments previous minority Parliaments had adopted.
Now it is rolling up big changes to environmental and immigration law in its massive omnibus budget bill, and moved to limit the time they are debated.
There are 221 private member’s bills that have been introduced so far in the 41st session of Parliament. They run the gamut of public policy.
On the order paper are bills to set new national standards for cancer screening of women with dense breast tissue; to require dates expressed as numerals to be read as yy/mm/dd in a legal document, and to punish anyone who defaces a war monument or cenotaph with fines ranging from a minimum of $1,000, or with jail terms of up to 10 years.
Original Article
Source: Star
Author: Tonda MacCharles
Since Sunday, four private member’s bills that make changes to criminal and corrections law have been publicly backed by the government as good additions to its tough-on-crime agenda.
Here’s what the latest batch would do: create a new criminal offence for recruiting young people into gangs, levy $5,000 fines or jail terms up to 10 years for wearing a mask or face paint at a riot (five years if it’s an “unlawful assembly”), give federal prison officials more authority to dismiss inmate grievances by deeming them “vexatious” or “frivolous,” and set up a forced debt recovery scheme for inmates who win money from lawsuits against the Crown to require payment of outstanding child support, restitution orders or victim surcharges.
Another private member’s bill on Wednesday moved toward the final stage of Commons approval, to loud applause from Conservative benches. Bill C-304 would repeal Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act and prevent rights claims based on hate speech from being brought before human rights commissions.
The bills may all be fine in principle, but opposition critics see them as the new political tool of a government bent on appealing to its base while side-stepping public accountability.
Sponsored by backbenchers, not ministers, private member’s bills can make significant changes in areas of federal public policy, yet because they are drafted with the help of Library of Parliament counsel they do not go through the usual justice department scrutiny.
They are not subjected to the department’s analysis for constitutionality, regulatory impact or cost versus benefit. Nor are they subject of memoranda to cabinet for consideration by the full ministry — a process that may flag important regional, departmental or political concerns.
The Star has learned that although the government is publicly backing the bills, it does not allow Department of Justice lawyers to appear to publicly testify about the constitutionality of those bills.
Federal lawyers who came to a meeting Tuesday of the Commons public safety committee stammered their way through opposition questions about whether inmate debt recovery proposals pass constitutional muster.
In the end, committee vice-chair and NDP critic Randall Garrison revealed that the committee’s request for additional expert witnesses was turned down by the department “because of their possible future involvement in constitutional litigation resulting from the bill.”
Justice Minister Rob Nicholson’s press secretary Julie Di Mambro suggested in an emailed reply to an interview request that it isn’t the justice department’s job to explain the constitutional implications of private member’s bills.
“The Department of Justice is mandated to provide legal advice to the government. officials (who) appear regularly at committee meetings to explain government legislation and are more than willing to do so when it is appropriate.”
Former Liberal solicitor general Wayne Easter said Jean Chrétien’s Liberal government frequently adopted ideas raised in caucus for criminal justice reforms but, he said, they were then “brought forward as government bills.”
The Conservatives, he says, “are bringing them in through the back door.”
Easter concedes there are some advantages: advancing a policy through a private member’s bill gives a minister ammunition to push back against a department or Privy Council that may be cool to an idea. But he believes the Conservatives are using the bills “to appease their political base.”
NDP justice critic Françoise Boivin — a former Liberal MP in the minority Paul Martin government — said while all parties like to see friendly measures advanced when an MP wins an early spot in the lottery to introduce a private member’s bill, even the Liberals in a minority government did not do an end-run around the usual criminal lawmaking procedures.
She believes the Harper government has backed private member’s bills when it offers a tactical advantage.
“They see it as another tool to control even more the message and the agenda,” she said, but she deplored how it displaces the role of a private MP to raise their own issues. In committee, she said, the government side almost never adopts any helpful amendments — even from the other side.
Under a minority government, the Conservatives used Candice Hoeppner to sponsor a bill to kill the long-gun registry, which it calculated would lead to a free vote among opposition parties divided on the issue. Only after it won a majority government guaranteeing passage did the government actually bring in a government Bill C-19 to do the same thing.
But private member’s business has at times been a political headache for Harper. Conservative MP Stephen Woodworth’s motion to have a committee review the Criminal Code section that says a fetus does not become a human being until birth is complete.
“Every private member can table bills and motions in the House,” said Harper, who says he’ll vote against the Woodworth motion. “Party leaders don’t have any control over that.
Still, Harper does control the government’s agenda and which bills it chooses to support. So far, it has shown only impatience with the usual parliamentary process. The Conservatives pushed passage of an omnibus crime bill that consolidated nine laws, including reversing amendments previous minority Parliaments had adopted.
Now it is rolling up big changes to environmental and immigration law in its massive omnibus budget bill, and moved to limit the time they are debated.
There are 221 private member’s bills that have been introduced so far in the 41st session of Parliament. They run the gamut of public policy.
On the order paper are bills to set new national standards for cancer screening of women with dense breast tissue; to require dates expressed as numerals to be read as yy/mm/dd in a legal document, and to punish anyone who defaces a war monument or cenotaph with fines ranging from a minimum of $1,000, or with jail terms of up to 10 years.
Original Article
Source: Star
Author: Tonda MacCharles
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