Accountability Act clears final Senate hurdle, royal assent expected next week
BRUCE CHEADLE
OTTAWA (CP) - The Conservative government's showpiece accountability legislation has finally cleared the Senate and been returned to the House of Commons.
With all-party support in Parliament, the sweeping act is expected to be swiftly passed into law before the Commons rises for the winter recess next week.
The Accountability Act met some resistance in the Liberal-dominated upper chamber, where senators proposed some 150 amendments after weeks of hearings this fall.
That led Treasury Board President John Baird to repeatedly charge that the unelected Senate was stalling the legislation and thwarting the will of Parliament.
Ultimately, some 90 of those Senate amendments were included in the final legislation that went to the Commons on Thursday.
"I felt that this was as much as we could get at this stage," said Liberal Senator Joseph Day.
"This justifies the work that we've done. We've been vindicated."
The bill is expected to get royal assent as early as next Tuesday.
Many of the accepted amendments simply clean up sloppy drafting in a hastily drafted bill that swiftly cleared the Commons last spring.
Others amendments - despite actually beefing up the legislation - were deemed offside by the Conservatives, who campaigned on improved government accountability as a response to the sponsorship scandal.
For instance, the Senate failed in its bid to raise the amount of legal costs the government will cover for whistleblowers, which the act sets at $1,500.
Day said that's not enough to "open a file" at a lawyer's office and wanted the limit raised to $25,000.
Senators also failed in their bid to reduce the large number of exemptions the government can use to shield documents under the Access to Information Act.
The upper chamber wanted to keep the Canadian Wheat Board exempt from access-to-information requests, but Day said that was a non-starter in the current super-charged political atmosphere surrounding the grain marketing monopoly.
One significant Senate proposal that was accepted was the removal from the act of a single ethics commissioner for both Houses of parliament. That clause has been dropped, meaning the status quo will continue.
BRUCE CHEADLE
OTTAWA (CP) - The Conservative government's showpiece accountability legislation has finally cleared the Senate and been returned to the House of Commons.
With all-party support in Parliament, the sweeping act is expected to be swiftly passed into law before the Commons rises for the winter recess next week.
The Accountability Act met some resistance in the Liberal-dominated upper chamber, where senators proposed some 150 amendments after weeks of hearings this fall.
That led Treasury Board President John Baird to repeatedly charge that the unelected Senate was stalling the legislation and thwarting the will of Parliament.
Ultimately, some 90 of those Senate amendments were included in the final legislation that went to the Commons on Thursday.
"I felt that this was as much as we could get at this stage," said Liberal Senator Joseph Day.
"This justifies the work that we've done. We've been vindicated."
The bill is expected to get royal assent as early as next Tuesday.
Many of the accepted amendments simply clean up sloppy drafting in a hastily drafted bill that swiftly cleared the Commons last spring.
Others amendments - despite actually beefing up the legislation - were deemed offside by the Conservatives, who campaigned on improved government accountability as a response to the sponsorship scandal.
For instance, the Senate failed in its bid to raise the amount of legal costs the government will cover for whistleblowers, which the act sets at $1,500.
Day said that's not enough to "open a file" at a lawyer's office and wanted the limit raised to $25,000.
Senators also failed in their bid to reduce the large number of exemptions the government can use to shield documents under the Access to Information Act.
The upper chamber wanted to keep the Canadian Wheat Board exempt from access-to-information requests, but Day said that was a non-starter in the current super-charged political atmosphere surrounding the grain marketing monopoly.
One significant Senate proposal that was accepted was the removal from the act of a single ethics commissioner for both Houses of parliament. That clause has been dropped, meaning the status quo will continue.
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