Like its own particular kind of time-machine, the House of Commons managed to squeeze fifty-eight hours of debate into a single day. Or at least, a single sitting day, which meant that while time outside flowed, the calendar on the Clerk’s table remained firmly rooted at Thrusday, June 23rd. And while the NDP talked out the clock on the first hoist motion, eventually during the filibuster in Second Reading, the debate collapsed. After the Canadian Union of Postal Workers gave the NDP the go-ahead to move onto try and bring amendments to the bill, the MPs mostly filed back into the Chamber, voted on Second Reading, and one after another, amendments in Committee of the Whole were defeated. By eight o’clock Saturday in the sidereal universe, the bill had passed, and time inside the Chamber re-adjusted itself. The House now stands adjourned until September 19th, and the bill moves over to the Senate for a special Sunday session.
Elsewhere, Susan Delacourt looks at how much it would cost taxpayers in severance if we did abolish the Senate (perish the thought). I would add that what is left out of this is the spike in the cost of court challenges for all of the flawed legislation that is going to be going through that the Senate would normally catch. And the added cost of the House of Commons doing the regulatory oversight work that the Senate is doing. Really, the Senate does a lot more work than people realise.
And former Clerk of the Privy Council Alex Himelfarb looks at the failure of the “war on crime” in the US, and how that bodes ill for the Conservatives’ plan to increase their “tough on crime” measures.