Parliamentary Debate: Expert Witnesses

Committee Hearings Dept: Every proposed amendment was defeated, rendering weeks of committee hearings, parliamentary debate and expert witnesses as useless exercises in faux democratic policy making, according to The Star. The scope of this bill is overwhelmingly opposed by most Canadians. In a CARP poll taken at the end of May, a staggering 85 per cent of Canadians disagreed with the Conservatives bundling so many changes into a single bill and bill C-38 is now law. After a marathon 22 hour plus parliamentary session and quashing the more than 800 proposed amendments, sleepy MPs passed the 425-page omnibus budget bill. Bill C-38 is an oil baron s dream come true. It s the largest environmental bill ever adopted in Canada and it does not strengthen any aspect of environmental protection. It radically weakens the laws used to protect our natural environment, including exempting projects from environmental assessment, limiting the time provided for public and expert input into environmentally sensitive projects and removing habitat protection from the Fisheries Act. That prompted even two former Conservative fisheries ministers to publicly oppose the bill. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.