Legislature burns the midnight oil

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This article was published 07/11/2018 (2143 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Members of the Manitoba legislature were sitting well into the evening Thursday to debate a flurry of bills on the last day of the session.

Among the last bills to be debated were five held over from the spring sitting, including the government’s climate and green-plan legislation. The bills were assured passage under house rules, as they were introduced prior to a set deadline — and the fact the Tories hold the vast majority of seats in the legislature.

The government’s budget-implementation bill was also among the last to be debated.

Earlier this week, the legislative assembly passed Bill 29 (the Wildlife Amendment Act), which will restrict night hunting.

This bill required co-operation from the Opposition NDP and the Liberals to proceed as it had not been introduced early enough to ensure passage under the rules.

Premier Brian Pallister called Bill 29 one of the most important pieces of legislation in the session, which began late last fall.

“We did an extensive amount of consultative work there. As you know, there have been injuries (due to night hunting), people have been placed in danger. We’ve had people lose their lives,” he said Thursday.

Several Indigenous leaders have threatened to challenge Bill 29 in the courts, saying it infringes on the rights of their people. They also allege they were insufficiently consulted on the legislation. They had asked the province to hold off on the bill or risk a lawsuit.

The premier brushed off the threatened legal action Thursday, saying the threat of lawsuits “seems to be an inherent tactic that some want to use. It’s been used for decades, and it won’t stop.”

MLAs will convene for a new session — the fourth of the 41st Manitoba legislature — on Nov. 20, with the reading of the speech from the throne.

NDP Leader Wab Kinew said he’s calling on the government to make environmental protection and reinstituting “a price on pollution,” or carbon tax, the centrepiece of the next throne speech.

“It’s my hope that as we move past this session that we’ll be able to get that issue focused on what it really ought to be, which is a conversation about the environment and how we’re going to be able to preserve the air, water and land for future generations,” Kinew said.

He said the government should also focus its attention on the labour market.

“I think that the issue of jobs, as our economy gets disrupted by technology and automation, is also a major concern,” he said.

larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca