Omnibus II : from the Harper Reform Party (AKA The Conservatives)

[B00Mer]

Bill C-45, the second omnibus budget bill from the Conservative government, is a massive 450-page document.

Changes to MP and public service pensions have grabbed most of the headlines, but the legislation does many other things as well.
Here's a brief look at what's inside C-45.

1. MP And Public Service Pensions

UPDATE: MP Pensions have been hived off from the omnibus bill and passed without further debate in a surprise deal between the government and opposition parties.

Starting as early as January 2013, public servants and MPs will have to contribute 50 per cent of the payments into their pensions.

MPs will also have to wait until age 65 to start collecting their pensions, or be penalized if they start at age 55.

The precise date for MP pension changes is Jan. 1, 2016. There will be no change to the current eligibility for MP pensions of six years of service.

2. Unemployment Insurance

The Canada Employment Insurance Financing Board will be dissolved, and an interim means of establishing premium rates set up to replace its work. The Crown Corporation is currently run by a seven-member board. This move continues employment insurance changes started with the first omnibus budget bill, as cabinet gradually receives more authority to reform EI.

3. Changes To The Indian Act

The bill makes what could be controversial changes to the Indian Act, amending it to change the rules around what kind of meetings or referenda are required to lease or otherwise grant an interest in designated reserve lands. The aboriginal affairs minister would also be given the authority to call a band meeting or referendum for the purpose of considering an absolute surrender of the band's territory.

4. Environmental Assessment Act Tweaks

Last spring's changes to the Environmental Assessment Act are tweaked further in this omnibus bill.

5. Hiring Tax Credit

The bill will extend a popular small business hiring credit.

6. New Bridge To U.S.

C-45 also facilitates the construction of a new bridge across the Detroit River at Windsor, announced by Prime Minister Stephen Harper last summer. Certain legislation will be changed and other legislation won't apply to this bridge. Three federal bodies will cease to exist with the passage of this legislation.

7. Grain Act Amended

The bill also amends the Canada Grain Act, simplifying the way it classifies grain terminals, repealing grain appeal tribunals, and ending several other requirements of the current Act, giving the Canadian Grains Commission more power to regulate the grain industry. These changes follow the end of the Canadian Wheat Board's monopoly over wheat and barley sales in Western Canada, which take effect for this year's harvest.

8. Hazardous Materials Under Health

All the work of the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission will be transferred to the health minister.

9. Merchant Seamen Board Under Labour

The Merchant Seamen Compensation Board will see its authority transferred to the Minister of Labour. The three-person board currently hears and decides benefit claims for merchant seamen who are injured or disabled as a result of their work and are not currently covered by provincial workers' compensation benefits.

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http://www.thestar.com/opinion/letters/article/1277533--omnibus-ii-pm-s-hidden-agenda-becomes-clear

Well so far I don't see anything hidden in this second bill that strips Canadians rights away, like giving the CIA or FBI the right to enter Canada and arrest Canadians on Canadian soil.

Anyone else concerned about this second bill?? (Other than the typical talking heads)

[youtube]oEi72n6CoZM[/youtube]

 

[damngrumpy]

Harper is on the slow road down in the grand scheme of things. Yes the Reform Party
hijacked the Conservative Party. The current government is slowly trying to set up the
programs for their major offensive which will come into the next term.
why the next term? Governments often do things little by little to take the heat off their
overall program and it doesn't seem they are going to far too fast.
The problem is that today voters get tired of administrations its because the like
change for instant gratification. Any plan beyond a couple of years is too much
for even the most ardent voter. Its all about we're not happy anymore.
Actually its what the Republicans in the US were counting on. The problem there,
for all the disillusioned voters from 2008, there were three million more voters
who didn't vote in the past election. Result Romney never went to town so he didn't
have enough votes. What has this to do with anything? Plenty look at the major
cities outside of Alberta, Harper doesn't have that many seats in major Urban areas
either. That could be a key in the next election.

 

[Cliffy]

As usual, Rick got it straight: "Harper knows its wrong but he just doesn't care." He doesn't care about Canadians, what's right or about democracy. He only cares about shoving his agenda through before he gets the boot.
Oh and lining the pockets of those who bought his way into office. (Not that the Liberals would do anything different).

 

[Cannuck]

How Stephen Harper learned to love the omnibus bill: John Ivison | Full Comment | National Post

As Mr. Harper once put it: “In the interests of democracy, I ask how can members represent their constituents on these various areas when they are forced to vote on a block of such legislation?” Shame he changed his tune when he was elected to the highest office in the land.

 

[tay]

Stephen Harper in 1997 sneered in a speech to Americans that “Canada is a Northern European welfare state and wants us, with the urging of the Fraser Institute (funded by the American CATO Institute via the Koch bros) as well as the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, the Montreal Economic Institute, the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies, the C.D. Howe Institute, which I refer to as the Big Five, and their most recent sibling, the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. The irony of naming a free-market think tank over the only two prime ministers in our history to repeatedly blow the budget building thickly subsidized national railways, one of whom loved high trade tariffs and the other of whom was immeasurably corrupt, apparently escapes them.

What is even more striking about the uniformity of perspective from these think tanks, though, is the uniformity of funding. Once you begin digging, you find that the same big names keep cropping up in the donation records. So what we have in Canada is an incidence of false pluralism. There appear to be many economic policy think tanks in Canada. But they get a large chunk of their funding from the same group of wealthy donors, and they espouse the basic policy prescriptions, which, conveniently, will help their donors get even more obscenely rich than they already are.

If, as the think tanks insist, they are truly independent, then they shouldn’t mind dislosing who their largest donors are. The most plausible reason to hide this information is because you fear that if your readership learns who they are, they will start to doubt the credibility of your research. If that’s the case, then there must be conflicts of interest. And the best way to resolve a conflict of interest is to acknowledge it up-front and allow readers to weigh for themselves what effect that has on the substance of the reports.


Why are the Tea Party billionaires from the U.S. messing around in Canada?


U.S. Republican Koch oil billionaires help fund the Fraser Institute. Why the Fraser Institute? | The Vancouver Observer