The Liberal government’s push to speed controversial broadcasting bill C-10 through Parliament hit a road bump Tuesday, when the Speaker of the House voided dozens of amendments to the bill.
The amendments were made public Monday when the amended bill was tabled in the House of Commons. Conservative MP Blake Richards asked the Speaker of the House to strike those amendments, arguing the committee exceeded its authority, and on Tuesday the Speaker agreed.
Speaker Anthony Rota declared dozens of amendments added at committee after debate time ran out null and void, and ordered the bill to be reprinted without them.
“In some ways it’s indicative of frankly how the Liberals have handled this bill, almost from the get go. You’ve had a minister unable to effectively communicate the contents of it, you’ve had a provision pulled back which clearly has sparked enormous amount of concern across the country,” Geist said Tuesday. “And now, in the rush to try to get this legislation through without any real debate, and it oversteps the very boundaries of committee. And especially for this government which came to power, arguing that it was going to give more power to committees and leave them more independent, to see them rebuked in this way by their own speaker is, I think quite telling.”
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