Report From Parliament's Hill : May 24th

By Prince George - Peace River M.P. Jay Hill

                                                         Opposition Obstructs Conservative Agenda Canadians Voted to Support

After five straight weeks of some fairly “testy” days in the House of Commons, it has been as refreshing as ever to be back home this past week.  As I’ve been meeting with constituents throughout the riding, a question that I’m frequently asked is, “how is Canada’s minority Parliament “holding up?”  My answer?  It’s holding … with difficulty.

A couple of weeks ago, I outlined how our Conservative Government has doggedly persevered in overcoming the opposition parties’ resistance to some of our legislation. 

As for obstacles, the Liberals, the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois have used their majority in House of Commons Standing Committees to delay several other bills, including legislation to: better protect children from sexual predators (175 days); enact mandatory penalties for gun crimes (250 days); DNA identification (148 days); end conditional sentencing for violent criminals (139 days); and, impose tougher impaired driving laws (100 days).

The opposition parties also used their majority on the environment committee to remove mandatory national air quality standards and enforcement rules from Bill C-30, the Clean Air Act. 

The Liberals and NDP further colluded to allow political interference into air quality standards through their amendment to allow an Environment Minister to exempt certain areas of the country from air quality standards.  Not surprisingly, the areas most likely to benefit under this scheme are Liberal-rich voting areas of the country.

The opposition imposed another amendment that will lead to ZERO greenhouse gas reductions by allowing Canadian companies to pay to keep polluting through an uncapped fund.

Ironically, and hypocritically, the opposition parties used dirty tricks to ram through Parliament a Liberal Private Member’s bill, C-288, which would impose Kyoto Accord timelines upon Canada.  Yet these are targets that can’t be met even if we were willing to inflict devastation upon our nation’s economy. 

In order to advance C-288, the Liberals called for ‘quorum’ in the Senate, knowing that our limited number of Conservative senators would have to be in the Red Chamber to ensure democratic debate wouldn’t collapse.  Meanwhile, the Liberals at the Senate Standing Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources used the Conservatives’ absence to pass Bill C-288 in 43 seconds! 

Is this democracy?

Yes, Canadians elected a minority Parliament.  We knew it was going to be a challenge from the start.  However, Canadians still elected a Conservative government.  They didn’t elect an opposition government.  Yet, the three opposition parties are behaving as though they are in a position to govern and to advance promises THEY made during the last election campaign.

So yes, we are using all available and legitimate procedural tools available to fight these opposition dirty tricks.  We’re also continuing to issue invitations to the opposition House Leaders and Whips to meet with us to cooperate on legislation and policies important to Canadians.

We are doing everything we can to fight the opposition parties’ obstructionism in order to advance the agenda that Canadians elected the Conservative Government to enact.  We are trying to keep OUR election promises … the Opposition is doing all they can to prevent us from doing that.

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