A cold hard cruel politician. If I agreed with him I'd love him.

And if I agreed with the Senate's existence, I'd love those old fools too.

NDP outraged as Senate kills climate change bill


OTTAWA — Prime Minister Stephen Harper has turned back the clock on Canada's democracy by centuries after allowing unelected Conservative senators to use their majority to kill climate change legislation adopted by a majority of MPs in the House of Commons, NDP leader Jack Layton said Wednesday.

Conservative senators used a procedural tactic Tuesday night to scrap the bill, adopted in the Commons last spring in a vote of 149 to 136, without allowing it to be examined in Senate hearings or debated in the Senate chamber.

"That is totally contrary to the constitutional tradition of this country," said Layton, standing with his caucus in front of the Senate chamber on Parliament Hill. "It is totally contradictory and every Canadian should now be worried because these senators are here for one heck of a long time. And what's going to be next? What bill, representing the will of Canadians, is this Senate going to stop next? This Senate should be abolished. It should be ashamed of itself."

The climate change accountability legislation, introduced by the NDP, was also previously adopted by the Commons but died on the order paper when Harper called the 2008 election. NDP MP Bruce Hyer sponsored the latest version of the bill that calls on the government to adopt science-based targets for reducing pollution linked to global warming and to regularly report results and effectiveness of its policies.

Layton compared the Harper government tactics to the regime that prompted rebellions in what was then Upper and Lower Canada in the 1830s.

"The Senate hasn't done that for a private member's bill on second reading in 70 years," said Layton. "Stephen Harper is turning back the clock on democracy in this country and he starts with the climate change bill . . . We must not as Canadians allow the Senate to get away with this, because it would re-establish a system of government that we had thrown out 200 years ago and it's got to stop. OK, maybe not 200 years — the rebellions of (1838) — I'll start there."

He added that it also contrasts with Harper's previous criticism of the Senate when it was dominated by a Liberal majority.

"What's it going to be next?" Layton asked. "Is he saying it doesn't matter if Canadians throw Stephen Harper out of office in the next election. But he's now got his majority socked in here to make sure that his agenda gets established and that anything positive that the House of Commons wants to do can get blocked."

Marjory LeBreton, leader of the government in the Senate, said the Conservatives were prepared to debate the legislation, and suggested the Liberals were the ones who forced the 43 to 32 vote that killed the bill.

The Liberals said the Conservatives were to blame.

Environmental groups said the legislation provided guidelines for meeting Canada's international climate change obligations in a clear and transparent manner.

"It would have been difficult to watch the Senate defeat this groundbreaking legislation under any circumstances," said Clare Demerse, associate director of climate change at the Pembina Institute, an Alberta-based environmental research group. "But to see it lost in this way is even tougher: C-311 was defeated without any debate, without the chance to call a single witness to explain what it offered, and at a moment when key supporters of the bill happened to be away from the Senate."

— with files from Meagan Fitzpatrick (Postmedia News)


mdesouza@postmedia.com

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