(Ottawa) Justin Trudeau’s government is preparing for a legislative marathon as soon as parliamentary session opens next week.
During the election, the Liberals made more than a dozen promises to be kept within the first 100 days of their new term, which included re-tabling no less than eight bills.
With the holiday break, and the two days set aside for the Speech from the Throne and the election of a Speaker of the House, there will only be 22 sitting days left to fulfill all of these promises.
“We have very ambitious goals to achieve in the coming weeks and that is what we are focusing on,” Government House Leader Mark Holland said last week following the first caucus meeting. Liberal post-election.
In addition to all this, two new bills are among the Liberal priorities. The government plans to first implement new targeted emergency aid services for the individuals and sectors most affected by the pandemic.
Mr. Holland also announced the creation of a bill that would impose criminal penalties on anyone who harassed or intimidated healthcare workers, a promise made by Mr. Trudeau. The new legislation would also apply to anyone who blocks access to vaccination clinics, hospitals, screening centers or abortion clinics.
“We want to make sure […] that this does not happen again in the past, when health professionals who are on the front lines of this fight have been threatened by demonstrators. ”
The pitfalls of a minority government
Privately, government officials hope opposition parties recognize the urgency of quickly passing these two bills, as they have done in the past with other pandemic-related measures.
Because they hold only a minority of seats in the House of Commons, the Liberals will need the support of at least one opposition party to pass a law or to limit debate and force the vote on one. law Project.
In a minority House, an opposition party can drag debate for weeks on end, simply by presenting enough speeches from MPs to run out of time. It can also hamper the passage of laws by deploying procedural delaying tactics.
These strategies were regularly used by the Conservative Party during the last legislature, albeit on issues unrelated to the pandemic, when the Liberals were again in the minority.
Nevertheless, the government has indicated that it hopes this time that relatively rapid progress can be made on at least two of the bills on its platform.
One would offer 10 days of paid sick leave to federally regulated workers, a measure proposed due to the pandemic.
The other would be a re-tabled bill, which seeks to ban the traumatic practice of forcing a person into “conversion therapy” in order to supposedly change their sexual orientation or gender identity. Although the Conservatives debated the ban extensively in the last session, and the majority voted against the bill, it has strong support from all other parties.
A long list
Other promised bills could take well over 100 days to clear all legislative hurdles. Among them, there is a regulation of the web giants to oblige them to support the distribution of Canadian works, a law forcing digital platforms to remunerate the Canadian media whose content they share in order to make a profit and the implementation of measures. Stricter against online hate, which includes hate speech, terrorist content, incitement to violence, child sexual abuse and the non-consensual distribution of intimate images.
A reform of the Official Languages Act is also expected, as is a reform of the justice system to address the disproportionate incarceration of blacks and Aboriginals. This includes eliminating mandatory minimum sentences for less serious crimes and increasing the use of conditional sentences, such as house arrest or treatment, for those who do not pose a threat to public safety.