March 13, 2009
Bill C-10 may be law but our fight isn't over
Our parliamentary democracy continues to be tarnished with the passage into law of another Conservative omnibus budget bill. Unable to accept their position as a minority government, the Conservatives have chosen, once again, to ram through legislation completely unrelated to the budget without time for proper scrutiny.
Bill C-10 is full of poison pills including wage roll-backs, a new pay equity law for federal public sector workers that is anything but, watered down environmental protection of our navigable waters and considerable loosening of foreign investment limits, among many other changes.
At the same time, the budget and its stimulus measures provide virtually no help for social infrastructure such as child care or for industries and jobs that are not “shovel ready”.
The Conservatives' callous use of the unemployed to get its budget bill passed – the extra five week's of benefits only become effective once the bill becomes law – is reprehensible, as is their refusal to fix the system to allow more workers, particularly women, to access the benefits they have been paying for and to provide a reasonable level of benefits. They even reinforced this position when they recently voted against an opposition motion to improve EI. The motion passed but the government will take no action.
The Harper government had a choice. They could have introduced a budget that was just a budget. There was absolutely no reason to include such a wide range of legislative changes in the budget bill, changes that would normally have been introduced as separate pieces of legislation with sufficient time for proper scrutiny by the House of Commons and the Senate. Instead the Conservatives chose to abuse our parliamentary democracy.
More than 550 pages of a bill have been given Royal Assent and have become law. I doubt very few of our MPs and Senators can tell you the extent of Bill C-10, much less what impact it will have on us, our economy, our environment and our country.
C-10 became law but not without a valiant effort by our members and staff who met with, phoned, e-mailed and petitioned both MPs and Senators; who demonstrated and made their opposition known; who joined with women's groups, the unemployed and other concerned citizens to protest against the ugliest features of this bill. I thank you for everything that you have done.
PSAC will continue its fight against unjust legislation. Challenging bad law in the courts is one avenue. But legal action isn't enough. We all need to talk to our family, friends and neighbours and to connect with others in our community who believe that what this government is doing is unjust and undemocratic. We need to continue the pressure on our MPs to bring them to account. We need to be prepared for the next election. And we need to start this now.
John Gordon
PSAC National President
Date Modified : 2010/07/29
