The federal government will invoke closure to stop debate on its budget bill, which has been held up at the Commons finance committee by Conservative MPs requesting testimony from Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland.
Cabinet served notice on May 11 that it will force the committee to pass the bill by 4 p.m. Eastern Time on Friday, May 26. Conservative MPs on the committee, meanwhile, have requested that Freeland appear for two hours of questioning, as first reported by Blacklock’s Reporter.“The fact the current filibuster has seen us lose 20 hours of committee time that could have been spent hearing from witnesses is indicative of the need to set a deadline,” said Ontario Liberal MP Yvan Baker.
“End this filibuster so that we can get the Budget Implementation Act passed,” said MP Baker. “I am making sure members are aware of the intention here,” he said, adding that “I am giving notice.”
The 430-page budget bill, C-47, is an omnibus piece of legislation that introduces or revises 51 separate pieces of legislation. Opposition members of the committee have refused to allow a vote on the bill until Freeland appears to give testimony.
The budget includes spending of $496.6 billion in 2023, with half-trillion budgets forecast in future years, and a deficit this year of $40.1 billion. The federal government has not had a balanced budget since 2007. Meanwhile, interest charges on the national debt will cost $43.9 billion. This is an increase of $19.5 billion from the pre-pandemic cost of $24.4 billion, representing an 80 percent increase.
During testimony on April 18 at the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance, federal Budget Officer Yves Giroux said the federal budget has reached unprecedented spending.
“The government projects $500 billion in annual spending over the next two or three years,” said Giroux. “We are going over a psychological hurdle, a very large one.”
“Has the government lost control of its spending?” he asked. “I don’t know,” he told the committee.
Nova Scotia Conservative MP Rick Perkins put the attention on Freeland.
“The minister won’t come to defend this bad budget for two hours,” he said. “I understand that. ... Perhaps it is because she is embarrassed it is such a bad budget.”
The New Democrats want to see the bill pass. Manitoba NDP MP Bill Blaikie said, “We are running out of time,” said Blaikie.
“We live in a majority decision-making context, said Blaikie.“That’s what the House of Commons is. You need a simple majority to decide virtually every question.”
“But we have to be able to put the question in order to make those decisions,” he added, noting, “And at a certain point, having a minority of people on the committee hold up the possibility of making a decision at all simply because they don’t like the decision that’s going to be made, or because they want this thing or they want that thing, becomes a problem.”
