With much of Canada focused on provincial and territorial elections, the Harper government has enjoyed a quiet start to the fall session of Parliament, its first full session as a majority government. It has used this lull in attention for federal politics to introduce an omnibus justice bill that includes all of the crime bills that had not been passed before the election in May. The bill — a major plank in the Conservative platform — contains many controversial provisions, the balance of which would see more Canadians spend more time in prison for the same crimes.
What is most egregious about the bill, however, is not its provisions, but rather how the government has introduced it. Since an omnibus bill is treated as a single piece of legislation, it will receive a fraction of the debate and scrutiny in committee than each bill would have if considered separately considered in its original form. The result is that it is much harder for the opposition to effectively hold the government accountable particularly for the necessity of specific provisions of the bill such as mandatory minimum sentences for particular crimes.
If the Harper government could prove that it was necessary to adopt the justice bills quickly, then it might be appropriate for them to be combined into an omnibus bill. However, the government has not been able to provide much aside from vague arguments to justify why this legislation must be passed. Crime rates in Canada are already low and falling, and there is little evidence that tougher sentences act as an effective deterrent against crime. It may be that the government has information to the contrary, but if they do not care to share it with Canadians then the urgency has simply been manufactured.
In fact, the Conservative government has somewhat unintentionally provided clear evidence as to why the omnibus justice bill should not be passed by systematically refusing to provide the opposition with any information about the bill’s anticipated costs. Tougher crime laws mean more prosecutions, which will put tremendous pressure on an already overburdened criminal justice system. This will also mean that more Canadians will receive prison sentences, which will require the renovation of existing prisons, the construction of new ones, and the hiring of more staff for these institutions. Without this information, the opposition lacks the resources to make an informed decision about whether to support the legislation.
Moreover, the Harper government has announced its intention to invoke cloture on the bill, which is a legislative procedure that allows them to limit debate in Parliament. In this case, the government is expected to reduce debate to as little as two days. This is far too little for a bill that could prove extremely costly to implement and have devastating social consequences, as has been the case in American states that have adopted tough crime laws.
As with omnibus legislation, cloture should not be used unless there is a clear need to protect public safety or there has been a concerted effort by the opposition to filibuster a bill. The Conservative government has not been able to justify why it has chosen to bundle its justice bills into a single omnibus bill nor why they have invoked cloture on debate on the bill.
The only possible reason for doing so is political expediency, which means that they have little regard for the importance of parliamentary scrutiny. This signals a disturbing shift in the prime minister’s political thinking. Stephen Harper seems to think that there is no reason for Parliament to serve as anything more than a rubber stamp. This approach to Parliament severely undermines Canadian democracy because it keeps the opposition from being able to meaningfully scrutinize the government’s proposals.
