Conservatives' omnibus crime bill clears Commons | News | National Post

Conservatives' omnibus crime bill clears Commons | News | National Post

"OTTAWA — The opposition has called it misguided, at least two provinces have vowed not to pay for it and the Canadian Bar Association has done its darndest to get the Conservatives to listen to reason.

Still, the controversial omnibus crime bill cleared the Commons Monday evening, just 45 sitting days after it was first tabled.

The Safe Streets and Communities Act — a hodgepodge of nine justice bills, most of which were defeated in previous Parliaments when the Conservatives were in minority status — easily passed thanks to the government’s new majority in a vote of 157 to 127.

“Parliament has seen and debated these measures, some of them for as long as four years,” Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said earlier in the day as he called on all MPs to unanimously support the measures — even though this clearly was no longer necessary, nor likely to happen.

“The time for talk is over. The time for action is now.”

The government fast-tracked the bill through the Commons, invoking closure every step of the way to limit debate, and Nicholson expressed hope that the bill also would move through the Senate “expeditiously.”

It is likely to pass second reading before Parliament breaks for the holidays and the Senate committee on legal and constitutional affairs will begin hearing from stakeholders and examining the bill clause-by-clause in the new year.

Bill C-10 is poised to become law by March 16, 2012, the 100th sitting day of the 41st Parliament.

The Senate, however, will need to consider six government amendments proposed by Public Safety Minister Vic Toews at the 11th hour following consultations with stakeholders after House Speaker Andrew Scheer ruled them out of order.

Nearly identical to some of the 38 proposals tabled by Liberal justice critic Irwin Cotler, the amendments aimed at strengthening provisions that allow victims of terrorism to sue their perpetrators were ultimately rejected by a Commons committee.

The late day flip-flop raised the ire of the opposition, which argued this was an abuse of democracy and proof the government was pushing the bill through without adequate debate.

Cotler, who was justice minister under Paul Martin, said Monday that he has spoken with his colleagues in the Senate and has suggested a number of other amendments for the opposition to bring forward.

“I do hope that maybe the government will say, ‘Okay, the Senate is the chamber of sober second thought,’ and maybe they’ll give it that sober second thought, revisit some of their own legislation and see that it gets improved by the Senate deliberations,” he said, noting the government does, however, also have a majority in the Senate.

“The way they exercised their majority in the House, I’m not confident that they’re going to do things differently in the Senate, but there’s always hope.”

Cotler said the biggest “holes” in the bill include the fact that it contains no protection for the mentally ill, that some of the provisions are “constitutionally suspect” and could end up being challenged in court and that changes to the International Transfer of Offenders Act give the minister of public safety unfair and arbitrary powers."