Parliament

Watchdog pans prison spending plan

Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Wed, 06/23/2010 - 3:58pm
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By Janice Tibbetts, Canwest News
 
OTTAWA — A new prison-sentencing law will cost the federal government an extra $5 billion over five years and the provincial governments even more, Canada's spending watchdog estimated Tuesday in a report that predicts 13 new prisons will be needed to incarcerate 4,000 new offenders.
 
Kevin Page cautioned that his cost analysis is not an exact science, but rather a "high-level estimation" because he says he was stonewalled by the government in his efforts to secure the needed data.
 
"I knew incarceration was expensive, but when we actually did the calculation . . . you get big numbers in a hurry," said Page, the parliamentary budget officer.
 
"It is a lot of money in a period of time when we're generating deficits." Read more »

House leaders warn government: don't count on our legislative support

Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Tue, 01/26/2010 - 4:18pm
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By HARRIS MACLEOD

The opposition House leaders are warning Prime Minister Stephen Harper that he shouldn't take their cooperation for granted in the next session and say his government has "soured" the atmosphere in the Commons by proroguing Parliament.

 

"It will be quite tense," said NDP House Leader Libby Davies (Vancouver East, B.C.) of her expectations for the resumption of Parliament, March 3.

 

The NDP extended an offer to the government to restart all of the 36 bills that died on the order paper when Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) prorogued Parliament on Dec. 30, if he agreed to reverse his decision and bring Parliament back when it was scheduled to resume, Jan. 25. In order for a bill to be restarted from where it left off it requires the unanimous consent of the House, and Ms. Davies said Mr. Harper shouldn't count on their help in getting his government's legislation through.

Read more »

Senate hardly the biggest obstacle to Tory crime bills

Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Thu, 01/07/2010 - 1:17pm
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Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in an interview Tuesday night with the CBC’s Peter Mansbridge that the Liberal-dominated Senate has been blocking Conservative government legislation.

“We obviously can’t get our legislation through,” Mr. Harper responded when asked why he has reversed his decision not to appoint Senators. “What the Senate is blocking isn't just government crime legislation, it's blocking Senate reform legislation.”

Well, no.

The Senate may be blocking Senate reform legislation – that’s a matter for debate. But it is not blocking crime legislation.

Read more »

Grassroots fury greets shuttered Parliament

Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Tue, 01/05/2010 - 11:50am
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By. Susan Delacourt, Toronto Star

OTTAWA–Prime Minister Stephen Harper's decision to shut down Parliament for the next two months is facing a growing public uprising, which is building on social networks across Canada and is set to spill over in dozens of protest rallies this month.

"Get back to work" is the rallying cry on a Facebook page that has been gaining thousands of supporters each day since it was launched last week – approaching 20,000 by the end of the day on Monday.

It now has chapters in about 20 major centres, including Toronto, and demonstrations are planned for Saturday, Jan. 23 in those cities.

Read more »

C-15 is dead!

Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Wed, 12/30/2009 - 12:53pm
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I have some great news! C-15 is no more.
 
Today, Stephen Harper asked the Governor General to “prorogue” (end the session of) Parliament. This means that all the bills are dead, C-15 included!
 
Had it not been for the hard work of everyone in lobbying the Senate, C-15 would have passed into law. That's right, we campaigned politically and won! C-15 has been stopped!
 
The Parliament will resume in March, and we can assume Stephen Harper will reintroduce C-15 in some form shortly thereafter.
 
We can not stop now! We must continue to build so that when C-15 comes back we can face it with even greater numbers and more intense campaigning.
 
Read more »

Parliament is stifling public debate

Submitted by Ellis Worthington on Thu, 11/12/2009 - 6:08am
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http://denning.law.ox.ac.uk/lrsp/images/parliament_000.jpgMPs just don't want to engage with voters

By Deborah Orr, The Guardian

Move along, now. There's nothing to see. That's the command that the debate police always manage to get across. The tragedy is that Parliament is the debate police, when it is supposed to be the cradle of informed and formalised discussion. This time last week, the nation was in the throes of a massive pile-up of diverse and often highly sophisticated opinion about illegal drugs, triggered by the Government's sacking of the head of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, Professor David Nutt. Already, its participants are being moved along, and already, there is little to see.

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