POLI 221 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Secret Ballot, Omnibus Bill
8 Aug 2016
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Document Summary
The mp"s are the center of the institutional context. Parliament has the assumption that it is a place where things are debated. The object of debate is to persuade so the notion is that parliament should try to control what government does. But there are too many tools which undermine the ability of parliament to make it work like closure or time allocation. Government proposes legislation and you"d think there would be meaningful debate. From 1980 to the present, closure was used 166 times in 23 years. it is a parliamentary tool, that the government can set time limits on debating legislation. Notion that parliament will intelligently debate parliament is invalid. Governments introduce omnibus bills to implement there budgets, the notion would use a budget implementation bill. Used to be very straight forward. the tactic came from the chretien government, they introduce legislation and say its part of the omnibus bill.
