Ottawa

The fight against C-38 continues

Two former Progressive Conservative ministers and one former Conservative MP criticize the budget bill’s changes to fisheries regulation.

John Fraser, a former fisheries minister under prime minister Brian Mulroney, and later House Speaker, told The Hill Times the omnibus bill is a “mistake,” that the “politics is dumb,” that he doesn’t appreciate how the government casts critics of the process as “radical left-wingers,” and wondered what the House Finance Committee will know about “steelhead and salmon on the West Coast” when it studies Bill C-38. 

“I think this is a mistake. When it comes to British Columbia, where salmon and steelhead are an icon and part of the very fabric of our sense of own home, our own particular homeland in Canada, these decisions should not be made by packing everything into a Finance Committee. They need to be made on the basis of a special hearing of some sort,” he told The Hill Times. 

The NDP reported back this morning on its public consultations and will apparently attempt to move amendments to C-38 at committee. The Liberals are promising to support Elizabeth May’s attempts to table amendments when C-38 returns to the House for third reading. Ms. May—who suggests today these next few weeks will be both “historic” and “crucial”—has suggested she could have “potentially hundreds” of amendments to propose.

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