It appears there may be some willingness at the Manitoba legislature to change the rules to ensure all bills — including omnibus budget bills — are subject to public hearings.
The NDP government rammed through multiple legislative changes in its budget implementation bill this session, including new laws that had nothing to do with the budget. The NDP is not the first to do so. Many governments in the past, including Progressive Conservative ones, have used this tactic to avoid public scrutiny.
Under current house rules, all bills except financial ones must go to a standing committee where they are subject to public hearings. Members of the public and interest groups can make presentations to the committee on a bill. It allows the public to give input into proposed legislation and ensures politicians listen to the people. On rare occasions, it can even lead to amendments to a bill.
I suggested in this column last month that the legislature change the rules so that all bills, including financial ones such as budget bills, must go to a standing committee and public hearings. It appears there may be some interest in this.
Progressive Conservative finance critic Lauren Stone said Thursday the Tories are open to the idea.
The Tories continued to accuse the NDP this week of subverting democracy by pushing its omnibus budget bill through the legislature without public hearings. Under house rules, government can send any bill to a standing committee and hold public hearings on it, including a budget bill, but they don’t have to do so.
The NDP’s omnibus budget bill includes changes to election finance laws, creates a seniors advocate, amends the environmental act and makes significant changes to labour laws, including a ban on replacement workers during strikes or lockouts. None of those have anything to do with the budget. Government added them in to avoid public scrutiny around those legislative changes.
The labour law changes in particular would likely have drawn a large contingent of public presenters, including from labour and business groups.
“They’ve given themselves sweeping, unprecedented powers by doing this,” said Stone. “This is interference in the economy that the NDP is doing and Manitobans should have had their say on major pieces of legislation.”
It’s hypocritical for the Tories to criticize the NDP on this. They did the same thing when they were in government. And they would likely do it again in the future unless the rules are changed.
Which is precisely why the rules committee — which includes members from all political parties in the legislature — should convene and start discussing how they can change the rules so all bills go to a standing committee.
Government house leader Nahanni Fontaine was non-committal on the idea when asked about it Thursday. But she didn’t say no.
Ideally, governments should stop the practice of combining separate pieces of legislation into one bill. There are times when multiple changes to various acts need to be part of one bill to effect change on something. But there is no valid reason to lump labour law changes in with the creation of a seniors advocate or changes to the environmental act. Those should all be separate bills, debated and voted on individually.
However, trying to prevent governments from doing that through changes to house rules would be tricky, if not impossible.
Ensuring all bills go to a standing committee and public hearings is straightforward. If it is the will of all parties, that change can easily be made at the rules committee.
If Premier Wab Kinew is truly serious about making government more open and accountable, he would be amenable to this change. Ultimately, the decision lies with him. Politically, if he wants to make this happen through the rules committee, it would happen.
It would be similar to how a land acknowledgment was adopted before the sitting of the legislature each day, which I also first proposed in a column in 2017. It was adopted in 2021.
In fact, it was Kinew, who was then opposition leader, who wrote the speaker’s office to kick-start the process after I interviewed him for the story. The Tories, in government at the time, were at first reluctant. But they came around and it ultimately got the blessing of then-premier Brian Pallister.
If the premier wants a change like this, it gets done through the right channels.
Ensuring all bills are subject to public scrutiny at a standing committee would be good for democracy and it would be the right thing to do.
tom.brodbeck@freepress.mb.ca
Tom Brodbeck
Columnist
Tom Brodbeck is a columnist with the Free Press and has over 30 years experience in print media. He joined the Free Press in 2019. Born and raised in Montreal, Tom graduated from the University of Manitoba in 1993 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics and commerce. Read more about Tom.
Tom provides commentary and analysis on political and related issues at the municipal, provincial and federal level. His columns are built on research and coverage of local events. The Free Press’s editing team reviews Tom’s columns before they are posted online or published in print – part of the Free Press’s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.
Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber.
Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.