The Great Canadian Omnibus Bill Crisis

Justin Trudeau during question period (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)

Written by: Aidan Jonah

This article was originally published on Medium, on Sep. 13, 2019.

In the spring of 2018, the Liberal government committed a betrayal against the democratic process, through the tabling of an omnibus bill. They were caught red-handed by members of the opposition parties, whose efforts to alert the public caused a justifiable backlash against the current Liberal government. Within these omnibus bills, the Liberals snuck through key legislative amendments, taking advantage of the inflexible process used to deal with bills in the House of Commons. Without easily digestible bills, the Canadian public is unable to keep track of the legislative changes made by Parliament. When a government becomes unaccountable to its citizens, the average citizen loses track of the government’s actions, becoming vulnerable to manipulation through social media and the posturing of political parties.

An omnibus bill is most often used by the party with the majority in the Federal Parliament. Since the bill is packed with so many changes, MP’s are forced to choose between supporting the bill which may contain both changes they do and do not support, or rejecting the budget bill. The bill goes through the mandated processes, which includes three readings. Once an MP has introduced a bill, the Speaker then proposes the motion for first reading, and the motion is deemed carried, without debate, or the ability to propose an amendment.

The only purpose of this reading is to ensure that a bill can be printed and distributed to all Members. During the motion for second reading of a bill, there are only three types of amendments which can be proposed; the first is a three months’ or six months’ hoist, which is the equivalent of defeating the bill by postponing its consideration. A reasoned amendment is a proposal that the House decline to give a bill second or third reading.

This amendment can only be proposed if it relates to the circumstances in which the bill is introduced, or an oppositional principle to the bill is introduced. The final option is a motion to refer the subject matter to a committee, which is practically equivalent to accepting the bill. Though the committee has the ability to reject the bill, this power has almost never been used. During the second reading of a bill, debate is allowed yet it’s all semantics, as only two options remain, to reject or accept the bill. As such, MPs only have total freedom to propose amendments during the third reading.

While this procedure may seem reasonable to the average observer, it is important to note that it was created to deal with only one bill at a time. When multiple bills are introduced in the shadows of a larger bill, the House of Commons lacks the necessary special procedures to deal with this political strategy. The reason for this is shockingly simple, as there is no official parliamentary definition for an omnibus bill.  It is automatically assumed within parliamentary procedures that the placing of bills within bills, will only be done for legitimate and democratic purposes. This is one of the major flaws of Canadian democracy.

In 2018, through the release of Bill C-74, the government finally admitted to the Canadian public that they had no intent to democratize the bill-making process. By tabling this omnibus bill, they were able to sneak through key legislative amendments, by placing new bills in the federal budget. This allowed the government to ram through extremely controversial changes.  Within bill C-74, a new criminal law was placed on page 527, which allowed for remediation agreements with corporate criminals. Remediation agreements ensure that corporations, who engaged in criminal activities, can simply pay off their illegally acquired profits, and have the prosecutor ask the court to drop all criminal courts.

The worst-case scenario became reality when SNC-Lavalin began to press the Trudeau government for a remediation agreement (DPA) in September of 2018. The Attorney-General of Canada, Jody-Wilson Raybould, was consistently pressured by high level PMO staff including Justin Trudeau’s right-hand man, Ben Chin, to utilise her newfound power to give out a DPA. As a result of her refusal to bow to the desires of Justin Trudeau, she was jettisoned from her cabinet position in an early January cabinet shuffle. Due to crucial investigative reporting from the Globe & Mail, the SNC-Lavalin scandal sparked into life days after her resignation from the position of Minister of Veterans Affairs. Yet, without the odious parliamentary dominance of omnibus bills in modern day Canadian parliaments this scandal may have never occurred.

When the overlying bill is the Federal Budget, it leaves opposition MP’s with three options, to choose whether they: want to cause an election (if there’s a minority government), reject a bill which contains changes they support, or accept a bill with an overabundance of legislative changes.

Omnibus bills have played an unfortunately prominent role in Canadian politics, over the past few decades.  In 2015, the Conservative government introduced bill C-51, a bill which “eviscerated privacy protections within the public sector”, according to Dr. Micheal Geist, a law professor at the University of Ottawa. In the end, thanks to the Security of Canada Information Sharing Act, a smaller bill within a larger bill, our national security agencies gained almost limitless powers to profile ordinary Canadians, with the stated reason being to identify “security threats”. This act has yet to be repealed by the current Liberal government, and showcases how damaging clauses can survive multiple governments, when hidden in omnibus bills.

Yet, omnibus bills can play a positive role in the advancement of Canadian society, when used by a government with positive intent. Take the Omnibus Criminal Reform Bill in 1969, which was introduced by the Liberal government of the day. The 126 page long omnibus bill contained a whopping 120 clauses. It legalized abortion and contraception, while regulating lotteries, gun possession, drinking and driving offences, harassing phone calls, misleading advertising and cruelty to animals. The bill’s legacy is still felt to this day as “changing the laws was an important milestone in queer rights”, according to NDP MP Libby Davies (in an interview with the Digital Journal).

As a result of the scheming of political elites and devious multinational corporations, anger has risen among the proletariat of the world, as they have swept fake populists and nationalists into office. These leaders have quickly and unsurprisingly betrayed their supporters, and began to act in the interests of the 1% who funded their campaigns. They have goals in mind and do not care for the sanctity of the democratic process. They take advantage of these omnibus bills to siphon money out of the public coffers and into the hands of the elites. Through giving their funders government contracts and displaying extreme nepotism, they attempt to prevent the people from ever escaping their clutches, while profiting off of every single second of the public’s misery.

When politicians like Donald Trump come into power, they gain control thanks only to the misdeeds of the political class who fuel the necessary anger among the populous, to continuously protect their privileged positions of power.