Published by Senator James Cowan on 16 March 2009
This past week has been a difficult one for Liberal Senators.
We were asked by the Government to deal with the Budget Implementation Bill (BIA) by the end of March.
Within two days the BIA was sent to the Standing Committee on National Finance chaired by Liberal Senator Joseph Day.
In consultation with the committee vice-chair Senator Irving Gerstein, Senator Day set up a workplan which would see 40 hours of committee hearings to enable concerned Canadians to present their views on the BIA .The committee agreed to report back to the full Senate on March 26 with a final vote to be taken prior to month end – as agreed with the government. Last Tuesday on the first day of hearings it came to light that, buried in the bill, was a retroactivity clause which meant that for every day passage of the bill was delayed thousands of Canadians would be deprived of EI benefits. What to do?
After meeting with our leader Michael Ignatieff, the Senate Liberals decided to pass the BIA immediately (last Thursday) while obtaining an order from the Senate that the subject matter of the BIA would be studied by several Senate standing committees which will report back to the full Senate by June 11.
This step will enable the individuals and organizations who have written to us about various aspects of the BIA – pay equity, collective bargaining, the Competition Act and the Navigable Waters Protection Act – to be heard. Mr. Ignatieff has promised to consider very carefully these Senate Committee reports and to take any necessary legislative action.
All of us supported the stimulus provisions of the BIA but we strongly opposed the unnecessary inclusion in the BIA of other legislative measures not directly related to the stimulus package and not having the same urgency.
We repeatedly asked the government to allow us to pass the stimulus package immediately and allow the other legislative measures to be properly studied. The government stubbornly refused to agree and we were left with two choices – hold up the whole bill until we could do a full study or pass the whole bill now and do our study later.
We chose the latter option.
Passage of the bill now enables the stimulus funding – and particularly the extended EI benefits – to flow immediately.
We will do the studies and report back to the Senate – and to Canadians – by June 11.
As I said earlier the Liberal party will take whatever legislative action is required to remedy the mess which the Government has created by their practice of lumping non budgetary matters in with legislation required to implement the budget.
As said at the outset this has been difficult for us but I firmly believe that we have made the right choice for Canadians. I hope you will agree but in any event I welcome your opinion.