Had the federal Liberals proposed something less objectively outrageous than they did in a draft bill leaked to the press on Monday, Conservative MP Scott Reid might on Tuesday have been seen as something of a villain. Well, OK, even more of a villain.
By agreement between the parties, a skeleton crew of MPs was to convene to pass a sweeping package of anti-pandemic measures, including billions in financial aid for Canadian families and businesses. But Reid said he was going to show up, against instructions from his party whip, and deny the unanimous consent necessary to slingshot the package past the usual procedural steps and get it enacted immediately. As I write this, proceedings in the House of Commons have been suspended for several hours, with the parties apparently trying to find a way around Reid’s roadblock — and Reid is taking a fair amount of verbal abuse on the social media.
Read’s reasons will strike many as the acme of wonkery. On March 13, he complains, under the cover of the COVID-19 pandemic, the House of Commons unanimously passed three fiscal bills that had not actually been tabled. This violated parliamentarians’ most basic duty, he argues, and he was determined not to let another bill be passed without the proper scrutiny.
“Panic is never, ever, an excuse to override our ancient political conventions,” he writes on his website. “These conventions are the oldest and best protections that exist for our political liberties.”
Furthermore, Reid says he was determined on principle not to obey an order to stay home that stemmed from an agreement between his party and the government. “If the conventional obligation to not impede MPs from attending to the business of the House, and of voting therein, does not extend to the prime minister, then the system of responsible government which cost so many lives (to achieve) in Britain in the 1600s, and in 1837-38 in Canada, is undone,” he writes.
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See Also:
(1) Parliament deadlocked over Liberals’ $27B COVID-19 aid package as opposition cries foul
(2) Trudeau pushes for power over aid for Canadians
(3) Stop the coronavirus incompetence
(4) Tories will support aid, not Liberal ‘power grab’: Scheer
(5) Scott Reid: Why I am in the House today
(6) MPs reach deal on emergency bill
