PARLIAMENT HILL—Opposition MPs spent nearly 15 hours in the basement of Centre Block on Tuesday, holed-up in a committee meeting room filibustering the Liberal government’s attempt to expedite a study on possible sweeping changes to how the House of Commons rules, and the saga is set to continue on Wednesday too.
After going through much of the day and well-into the night with just a handful of suspensions for votes and a pizza dinner, the Conservative and NDP members of the Procedure and House Affairs Committee will be back at it on Wednesday following their caucus meetings—a deal that was agreed to at about 3 a.m., according to Conservative MP Tom Kmiec (Calgary Shepard, Alta.) who is not a regular committee member, but is one of the Conservative caucus members who spent the night on the Hill to lend support to caucus colleagues.
NDP MP David Christopherson (Hamilton Centre, Ont.), a member of the House Affairs Committee, is calling it “war,” and told the committee on Tuesday evening that he would be addressing caucus on Wednesday with the plan of having everyone of his New Democrat colleagues “on the ceiling” and “ready to bleed” to defend the House rules from the Liberal majority interference.
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Conservative MP Scott Reid called it a “despicable attempt” by the government to ram through sweeping changes to how the House of Commons operates, even including when it sits. Mr. Reid (Lanark-Frontenac-Kingston, Ont.) made the comment about two hours into the filibuster. He said the way the government is going about forcing the vote to change the Standing Orders, or House rules, is a “contemptible abuse” of the system.
Throughout the evening, members of the opposition took turns holding the floor, including Mr. Christopherson, who went over previous parliamentary studies of the Standing Orders and the much longer timelines they had to complete them, compared to the time frame proposed by this motion. He also took every opportunity to highlight previous broken promises or contradictions of the Liberal government’s word on things like electoral reform and the independence of committees.
“We’re filibustering to protect the right to filibuster,” Mr. Christopherson said. “Who would have thought it would be this government, under this prime minister” to try to use its majority to make changes to the Standing Orders without all-party backing, he said. “It’s not your House… we have rights, too.”
The Trudeau Government is doing this via Omnibus Bill, breaking yet another election promise,