Senate set to rise without passing broadcasting, conversion therapy bills

OTTAWA -- The Senate is set to adjourn for its summer break by midnight on Tuesday, and despite the federal government pushing to see all of their priority pieces of legislation pass, two key bills are set to stall out as senators say they merit more fulsome study. Bill C-12, which will put into law Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions targets, passed its third and final reading on Tuesday afternoon, and Bill C-30, which implements the 2021 budget commitments, including pandemic aid extensions, followed suit Tuesday night. Both had received a “pre-study” in which senators were able to assess the legislative proposals, in general, before the document was actually before them. However, still some senators raised concerns about feeling as if the federal government was asking them to “rubber stamp” wide-spanning bills in a short timeframe. Though two other bills are likely to be left in limbo and potentially left to die if an election is called in the coming months: Bill C-6, which seeks to restrict the harmful practice of conversion therapy for LGBTQ2S+ folks, and Bill C-10, the controversial Broadcasting Act changes. Both passed into the Senate at the eleventh hour of the House of Commons sitting last week, and despite some initial debate, two pieces of legislation are unlikely to make it further than entering the committee study stage before senators rise or log off from their hybrid sitting for the summer. After sitting late into the night on Monday, the Senate passed Bill C-6 from second reading into the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee where a study is to be conducted before it could advance further. Bill C-10 passed into committee on Tuesday afternoon, putting it in the hands of the senators who make up the Senate Transport and Communications Committee to decide how to proceed. The Senate could sit late into the night on Tuesday and it’s possible a last-minute deal could be reached, though in absence of continued work over the coming weeks, both bills are set to languish in the upper chamber. This makes their fate subject to a much-speculated late summer or early fall election call. Any bills left in either the House or Senate that have not passed when a Parliament is dissolved, die. They would have to be re-tabled and work their way through all legislative stages again before becoming law.