Towards the first 100 days in office | Only a handful of promises have been kept

(Ottawa) Justin Trudeau’s Liberals have made a dozen promises to be fulfilled during the first 100 days of their new mandate. This deadline is fast approaching and only a handful of them have been completed to date.

Mylene Crete
The Press

The bill to ban conversion therapies was rammed through in December thanks to a Conservative motion to speed up the legislative process. The one that grants ten days of paid sick leave to federally regulated workers was also passed before the holiday break.

Third promise kept, that of introducing a bill to abolish mandatory minimum sentences. Bill C-5 was introduced in December and second reading will resume when the House of Commons sits again at the end of January.

A fourth, the organization of a summit to relaunch the cultural sector, was to be held on January 31 and 1^er February. The event was postponed due to the new wave caused by the Omicron variant.

These are 4 of the 11 promises that the Liberals, in their election platform, promised to deliver during the first 100 days of their mandate. The count began on October 27, the day after the new cabinet was sworn in. There are therefore seven promises to be fulfilled in just under three weeks if we exclude the one that is delayed by the pandemic.

Broadcasting, digital platforms, right to housing

As work will not resume until January 31, there will only be four days left to reintroduce the bill to reform the Broadcasting Act and the one to modernize the Official Languages ​​Act. The Liberals had also promised to introduce a bill to force digital platforms to share a portion of their revenues with the news media and another to fight toxic content online.

Then there is the promise to appoint a new housing rights advocate expected since 2019, to finalize the federal LGBTQ2 action plan and to convene the provinces and territories to discuss legislation to be passed to provide paid sick leave. to workers who do not have one.

The three main opposition parties doubt that this gives the government enough time to achieve this. “The traditional 100 days has become a hollow marketing formula,” noted the leader of the Bloc Québécois, Yves-François Blanchet, in an interview.

He argued that US President Joe Biden managed to keep a large number of promises during his first 100 days in office – 25 of his 61 campaign promises, according to the Associated Press – unlike the Canadian prime minister.

Justin Trudeau, in his opinion, did not give himself the means to respect his promises by recalling the House of Commons only two months after the federal election.

“We never believed it, it’s a hackneyed formula which obviously was not feasible in the context he gave himself, waiting far too long to call Parliament for a far too short session,” he continued.

“And even once the MPs were called back to Ottawa, just organizing the parliamentary committees took a really long time,” said NDP MP Alexandre Boulerice. We wasted a lot of time. A situation due to the improvisation of the liberals, according to him. “It’s a meager record,” he added. If I were a teacher and had to give a grade, it would probably be C-. »

“When I go to see it, I’m going to believe it,” mocked Conservative MP Alain Rayes in turn, referring to the bill to modernize the Official Languages ​​Act, promised in 2019. The idea emerged at the end of 2016 during consultations for the Action Plan on Official Languages ​​2018-2023. “If the past is a guarantee of the future, it will be a failure,” he added.

Hope for official languages

The Federation of Francophone and Acadian Communities (FCFA) still hopes to see the bill to reform the Official Languages ​​Act filed within the first 100 days and she won’t mind if it doesn’t. “The important thing for us is not only to act quickly, it is also and above all to do well,” points out its president, Liane Roy. The organization that defends the rights of minority francophones wants four amendments to be added, including one that would give the Commissioner of Official Languages ​​the power to impose fines in cases like Air Canada’s.

In Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor’s office, there is good hope of being able to reintroduce this bill by the February 3 deadline. Discussions are underway with other affected ministries to strengthen the first draft tabled in June, two months before the election campaign.

“Soon, we will convene the provinces and territories to develop a national plan,” said Labor Minister Seamus O’Regan’s press secretary. “We are working on it,” replied the press secretary of the Minister of Housing, Ahmed Hussen, for the appointment of the defender of the right to housing.

House Leader Mark Holland’s office was unable to say beyond doubt that all of the promised bills would be tabled before the 100 days were up. “We look forward to the return of the House of Commons at the start of the year, as we move forward with our legislative program,” said his press secretary, Mark Kennedy.