These words from Andrew Coyne:
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/04/30/andrew-coyne-bill-c-38-shows-us-how-far-parliament-has-fallen/
Bill C-38, introduced in the House last week, calls itself, innocuously,
“An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in
Parliament on March 29, 2012 and other measures.” The bill does
implement certain budget provisions, it is true: for example, the
controversial changes to Old Age Security. But “and other measures”
rather understates matters — to understate the matter.
The bill runs to more than 420 pages. It amends some 60 different acts,
repeals half a dozen, and adds three more, including a completely
rewritten Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. It ranges far beyond
the traditional budget concerns of taxing and spending, making changes
in policy across a number of fields from immigration (among other
changes, it erases at a stroke the entire backlog of applications under
the skilled worker program), to telecommunications (opening the door,
slightly, to foreign ownership), to land codes on native reservations.
The environmental chapters are the most extraordinary. Along with the
new Act, they give cabinet broader power to override decisions of the
National Energy Board, shorten the list of protected species, and
abolish the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act — among “other measures.”
For much of this the first public notice was its inclusion in the bill.
So this is not remotely a budget bill, despite its name. It is what is
known as an omnibus bill. If you want to know how far Parliament has
fallen, how little real oversight it now exercises over government, this
should give you a clue.
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