Bill C-654 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Parliament of Canada Act (omnibus bills)

This bill was last introduced in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session, which ended in August 2015.

Sponsor

Peter Stoffer  NDP

Introduced as a private member’s bill. (These don’t often become law.)

Status

Outside the Order of Precedence (a private member's bill that hasn't yet won the draw that determines which private member's bills can be debated), as of Feb. 19, 2015
(This bill did not become law.)

Summary

This is from the published bill. The Library of Parliament often publishes better independent summaries.

This enactment amends the Parliament of Canada Act to impose restrictions on the adoption of omnibus bills in the Senate and the House of Commons.

Elsewhere

All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.

Parliament of Canada ActRoutine Proceedings

February 19th, 2015 / 10:05 a.m.


See context

NDP

Peter Stoffer NDP Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-654, An Act to amend the Parliament of Canada Act (omnibus bills).

Mr. Speaker, I have been an MP now for seventeen and a half years, and I have to be honest with my constituents and the people of Canada that I am here under false pretenses, and so is every single one of the members of Parliament in this House.

Our number one responsibility, when it comes to legislation, is the fiscal scrutiny of all legislation that leaves this House. However, when legislation comes forward with 418 pages that would change 50 statutes and laws, nobody in the House of Commons reads it. Nobody in the House of Commons properly does the job we need to do to have fiscal scrutiny of the government.

My bill would stop omnibus legislation from coming in. Legislation could only be introduced if attachments were related to the subject matter. One could not introduce legislation that had nothing to do with the subject matter at hand.

This practice has to stop in the House of Commons. We have to restore democracy to the Canadian people.

I am proud to say that we in the NDP want to stop the bus when it comes to omnibus bill legislation.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)