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Rejecting bid to spin off controversial cuts to environmental assessments, Finance Minister tells Senate to pass budget bill before March Break
OTTAWA — Finance Minister Jim Flaherty warned the Liberal-dominated Senate today against foot-dragging on passing the stimulus plan, saying they’d better not take March break off before the legislation clears the Red Chamber.
He flatly rejected a Liberal proposal to separate out controversial cuts to environmental assessments from the omnibus 2009 budget bill.
Liberal senators who had raised concerns about changes the Tories are making to the Navigable Waters Protection Act suggested they’d take up to 10 weeks to study the stimulus legislation, which affects more than 40 other existing laws.
The controversial changes to environmental assessments are being touted by the Tories as necessary to speed up infrastructure projects.
“Do not dally,” he warned a finance committee that must study Bill C-10, the budget implementation bill, before the Senate passes it. “This is not an academic discussion … It’s important for the sake of Canadian families and Canadian business that we get on with this.”
He told senators to approve the budget bill before taking a spring vacation.
“Don’t go on holidays without passing it.”
The legislation will ensure federal money designed to counter the recession battering Canada will flow as of July and authorizes more credit for government lenders to extend to business. It also extends by five weeks the maximum possible period for receiving Employment Insurance.
Mr. Flaherty brought to the Senate committee 2,000 letters from Canadians pleading for relief from the recession. “This is real day-to-day life here. Canadians really don’t care about procedural and partisan arguments for further study.”
Senators had also suggested the Tories hive off controversial changes to public sector pay equity rules that would forbid bureaucrats from launching human rights challenges due to unequal pay.
The Finance Minister said there’s no possible way to split out measures such as the reductions in environmental assessments or changes to pay equity law.
Liberal Senator Grant Mitchell accused Mr. Flaherty of lying to Canadians, saying it’s “fundamentally misleading” to say some measures can’t be severed from the budget bill and put in separate legislation.
He said it’s sad the Tories can “only get [their] agenda through by tricks.”
Mr. Flaherty said the provinces back Ottawa’s plan to reduce environmental assessments as a way of accelerating job-rich infrastructure projects. “We have a great deal of duplication in environmental assessments,” the Finance Minister told the Senate committee.
In a dig at recalcitrant senators, Mr. Flaherty reminded them that the only chamber of Parliament that’s selected through democratic elections has already passed the budget.
“It’s been approved by the House of Commons … by the elected people of Canada.”