In 1994, the federal Liberal government of Jean Chretien introduced an omnibus bill in Parliament that not only implemented that year’s budget, but also tried to amend several other laws at once. During the bill’s debates on March 25, a young Stephen Harper asked that the bill be split up. As a Reform MP, Harper protested the fact that the Chretien government was trying to change several laws at the same time, most of which had nothing to do with each other. He quite rightly asked how Canadian MPs could represent their constituents when they had to vote for all these changes at once. He pointed out that different MPs might support some changes, but not others, and they would not be able to give proper consideration to each change.
Now, 18 years later, the Harper government has passed an omnibus bill of its own. Bill C-38 not only implements the budget, but changes more than 70 laws all at once. Some of these laws have to do with environmental regulation, while others are related to Employment Insurance. Many Canadians protested the bill, and the opposition parties called for the bill to be split into several smaller ones so that each change could be studied separately.
Omnibus bills like this raise several concerns. Many of the changes in Bill C-38 had nothing to do with each other, and could have been passed as separate bills. If the changes to things like environmental regulations and EI had been submitted as separate bills, the politicians and the public could have examined each of these bills on their own merits, and then made whatever changes were necessary to improve them.
Simply ramming everything through at once undermines the politicians’ ability to do their jobs, and weakens the quality of the legislation passed by Parliament.
According to Conservative backbencher David Wilks, even several Conservative MPs were frustrated by the way Bill C-38 was handled.
These types of omnibus bills also set an unpleasant precedent. A future Liberal or NDP government might decide to ram through an omnibus bill containing legislation that harms Alberta’s interests, and opposition Conservative MPs from Alberta could easily be powerless to stop it. If these Alberta MPs were to protest, the governing party could just as easily point to Bill C-38 to justify its actions.
The problems with these kinds of omnibus bills did not begin with the Harper Conservatives. Harper himself did a commendable job of pointing out many of the problems back in 1994 when the Chretien Liberals were doing it.
Now, however, the Harper government is doing the same things that Albertans used to criticize the Liberals for doing. This doesn’t solve the basic problems. All it does is perpetuate them.
Jared Milne is a St. Albert resident with a passion for Canadian history and politics.
