Opposition parties deny swift passage of bill to boost pandemic aid
OTTAWA — The non-partisan spirit that has allowed Parliament to swiftly pass emergency legislation during the COVID-19 pandemic evaporated Wednesday, with opposition parties refusing to give unanimous consent to the Trudeau government’s latest bill.
The Conservatives then blocked the government’s bid to split the bill in two, to allow a promised benefit for Canadians with disabilities to go ahead.
That benefit — a one-time, taxfree payment of up to $600 for Canadians with disabilities — and other measures in the bill are now in limbo, while the parties point fingers at one another over who is to blame.
Government House leader Pablo Rodriguez said he was disappointed that no opposition parties supported the bill but vowed to keep negotiating with them in hopes that a resolution can be found.
He conceded, however, that this will delay the disability benefit and other measures.
“I’m not going to quit on this because it’s too important,” he said in an interview shortly after the bill was rejected in a sitting of the House of Commons that lasted just 15 minutes. “Canadians need it, people with disabilities need it.”
The bill includes a proposed expansion of the wage-subsidy program to include seasonal workers and some additional businesses, as well as proposed penalties for fraudulently claiming the Canada Emergency Response Benefit.
The Liberals needed unanimous consent from all MPs in the House of Commons to allow the bill to be debated and passed in a matter of hours, as has been done with four previous pandemic-related bills. But none of the opposition parties was willing to support the latest bill.
The NDP balked at the prospect of Canadians who fraudulently claim the $2,000-a-month CERB being fined or sent to jail — despite Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s assurances that the punishment is aimed at those who deliberately defraud the government, not those who make honest mistakes.
New Democrats also wanted a firm commitment that the CERB will be extended and changes to the proposed disability benefit, which they maintained would apply only to 40 per cent of Canadians with disabilities.
The Conservatives held out for a full resumption of Commons business.
And the Bloc Québécois demanded three conditions be met before it would support the bill: a fiscal update this month, a first ministers’ meeting before September on health-care transfers to the provinces and a ban on political parties accessing the wage subsidy to avoid laying off staff.
Rodriguez said “there’s been a little bit more politics in the middle of this than before and it’s bad because it should be about people, not politics, definitely not partisan politics.” The Bloc’s conditions for supporting the bill “have nothing to do with the bill,” he noted.
However, Bloc Leader YvesFrancois Blanchet accused the Liberals of playing politics, arguing they’re acting like a majority government in trying to force through legislation while not providing transparency about the country’s finances. He accused the Liberals of deliberately including the disability benefit in the bill in order to coerce opposition parties into going along with the controversial fraud penalties. He likened that to “putting codliver oil in chocolate cake.”
Both Blanchet and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh suggested the disability benefit should be dealt with separately. But when Rodriguez moved to do just that, the Conservatives refused to give their consent.
Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer instead proposed a motion to have the House of Commons resume sitting later in the day — and resume business then. The Liberals rejected that.
What happens to the bill now is not clear. The Commons is not scheduled to sit again until next Wednesday, when it is supposed to deal with other issues.