Published Jan 07, 2025 \u2022 Last updated 1 day ago \u2022 4 minute read<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n 257 Comments<\/p>\n\n\n\n By proroguing Parliament on Monday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau may have just sabotaged the fate of our relationship with the United States<\/a>. But this, at very least, came with a happy side-effect: he also sabotaged the progressive legislative agenda that\u2019s overtaken both houses of government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In other words, a whole bunch of bad bills just died. Good riddance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n The online harms (censorship) bill? Dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Liberals were already backing off Bill C-63, having announced<\/a> in early December that the hulking piece of legislation would be split in two in hopes of making at least parts of it into law. Now, the whole thing is off the table. It\u2019s mostly good news: the draft online harms law would have subjected social media companies operating in Canada to a new government bureaucracy in the name of \u201csafety.\u201d Moreover, it would have introduced the vague crime of \u201chate crime\u201d<\/a> and tasked<\/a> the Canadian Human Rights Commission with regulating comments online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, this also means the death of the parts of C-63 that worked to crack down on child sexual abuse online, but even that had its flaws<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Also dead is that bill that would have made thousands of people around the world eligible for Canadian citizenship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bill C-71<\/a>, if you remember, would give the children of Canadians born abroad citizenship through descent, as long as the parents can establish a \u201csubstantial connection\u201d to Canada. The guardrail wouldn\u2019t be a secure one, since some judges don\u2019t believe<\/a> that there are any citizens who lack a connection to the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Platformed<\/p>\n\n\n\n This newsletter tackles hot topics with boldness, verve and wit. (Subscriber-exclusive edition on Fridays)<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n The bill\u2019s proponents marketed it as a remedy to a rare problem that sometimes afflicts Canadian families who live abroad, such as military families. However, in trying to solve their problems, the bill would have made it much easier for citizenship to be obtained by the grandchildren of birth tourists (people who travel to Canada to give birth, which secures Canadian citizenship for their child).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lesser-known Senate bills of grave consequence are in the grave, too, including a bill that would have allowed every minority group to establish its own healing lodges (that is, low-security incarceration facilities for prisoners).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bill S-230<\/a> would have required a lot worse, too. If passed, the law would require the Correctional Service of Canada to approve all requests by prisoners to transfer to their respective healing lodges, unless a court were to decide that such a transfer was \u201cnot to be in the interests of justice.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Introduced by the same senator jockeying for identity-based healing lodges, was Bill S-233<\/a>, which is also now dead. It would have required the government to create a Universal Basic Income framework that would cover anyone in Canada over the age of 17 \u2014 even non-Canadians like temporary foreign workers, permanent residents and asylum seekers. Though it was more a concept of a plan and didn\u2019t set out any dollar figures, the bill would have opened the door to even more unproductive spending<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n And finally, the Senate bill that would have commandeered Canadian banks to regulate the climate impact of its clients has met its timely end as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The draconian Bill S-243<\/a>, which was midway through the Senate, would have<\/a> allowed the federal financial regulator to mandate banks to increase the amount of capital clients need to finance loans related to the fossil fuel industry. The bill would have also mandated<\/a> that corporate directors in the finance industry uphold the federal government\u2019s climate commitments, violating the public-private boundary that free countries are supposed to respect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe bill would effectively discourage \u2014 in some cases probably even block \u2014 financing of pipeline operators, natural gas distributors and fuel companies,\u201d wrote<\/a> Financial Post columnist Joe Oliver in 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Though these troubling Senate bills weren\u2019t introduced by the Liberals, they might as well have been. Their sponsors are members of the Independent Senators Group, which is the heir to the Liberal senate caucus, and their work certainly aligns with the Liberal government\u2019s agenda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Article content<\/p>\n\n\n\n Also dead is the capital gains inclusion rate hike,<\/a> which, for the Liberals to even get on the order paper as a bill, required a successful notice of means and ways motion. Though, this one\u2019s still twitching: the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) is still applying the new rules that were announced by the Liberals, and is thus asking people to prepare to pay them in their next filing. This isn\u2019t a radical new change on the CRA\u2019s part, however: convention (backed by law) holds<\/a> that tax changes are applied as they\u2019re announced, under the assumption the legislation will pass. If legislation ends up not passing (which is looking to be the case here), taxpayers can expect a refund<\/a> instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not all bills before Parliament will die, unfortunately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Private members\u2019 bills that start in the House of Commons are immune to prorogation, according to House rules<\/a>. That means that the jurisdiction-defying school food program bill (which comes with all sorts of cultural restraints), Bill C-322<\/a>, will live to see another session.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As will C-332<\/a>, which would criminalize \u201ccoercive control\u201d \u2014 that is, behaviour that makes a person\u2019s spouse or partner that makes the other person feel unsafe. The latter is an honourable goal, but the way it\u2019s drafted is so broad that it risks capturing relationships that, though toxic, aren\u2019t dangerous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Realistically, though, private progressive bills that don\u2019t offer much benefit probably don\u2019t have much to look forward to in the new session. With new governments come new priorities \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s a relief that the age of messy Liberal legislation is coming to a close. The purgatory prime minister will cause us a lot of problems in the coming weeks \u2014 but sloppy new laws cranked out of Parliament won\u2019t be one of them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Jamie Sarkonak: Good riddance to all the Liberal bills that Trudeau just culled The purgatory prime minister has put Canada in a precarious position, but at least no more of his bad ideas can be churned out of Parliament Get … Continue reading ![\"Canadian](\"https:\/\/smartcdn.gprod.postmedia.digital\/nationalpost\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/2192150591.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=288&h=216&sig=8fRXALjKUndI2Jm_x_HrYA\")
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