Budget Bill: Environmental Measures

Omnibus Bill Dept: The party is tabling a motion in the House Monday to split the bill so that MPs can debate it by section and so it doesn't go as a whole to finance committee rather than the subject-specific committees who deal regularly with some of the issues covered in the budget, according to CBC. New Democrats want the bill broken into at least five sections, Cullen said, including the environment, fisheries and other subjects. While it's supposed to be a budget bill, two-thirds of it concerns environmental measures, he added and new Democrats are calling for MPs to vote to split the budget implementation bill, a 400-page document detailing major changes to subjects as varied as environmental regulations and immigration law. "This bill contains many distinct proposals and principles. The Conservatives' 400-page omnibus bill does little to help our economy or get people back to work. But it does gut environmental protection and rewrite Canada's fisheries laws," NDP House Leader Nathan Cullen said, referring to two of the measures included in the budget bill. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.