Governments “omnibuster” to make stealth changes

Harperites, Ontario Liberals use omnibus bills to thwart democracy.

by Ish Theilheimer

with YouTube video rant produced by Samantha Bayard

If there's anything I can't stand, it's when you're out for a walk and you see a coffee cup from Horton's that some fellow Canadian has seen fit to throw out of the car onto the roadside. You go to dispose of the darn thing up and inside you find a cigarette butt or two.

I'm sure that only Stephen Harper Conservatives throw these damn things out of their car windows. They show the same level of respect and common decency in everything they do.

A used coffee cup full of butts is kind of like an omnibus budget bill, full of stealthy changes to important laws and attacks on rights. You never know what you'll find inside.

Ish rants in this YouTube video about "omnibustering" in federal and provincial budgets.

In fairness, you have to understand that it's not just Stephen Harper and his cronies that go in for the omnibustering. Ontario, for instance, has its own omnibus budget bill, which sounds as dangerous, in some ways, as its federal cousin. Maybe Ontario's provincial Liberals and the federal Harpercrites bought their omnibuses from the same dealer and then just plastered them with their own logos and decals.

In Ontario, the minority Liberal government introduced a deficit-slashing budget this Spring with drastic cuts, wage freezes, demands for concessions from public employees, and — until the NDP insisted on a wealth surtax — no tax increases. Since the deal with the NDP was announced, however, details have been emerging over an obscure part of the budget bill known as Schedule 28.

The budget itself is Bill 55, but Schedule 28 is what's drawing all the alarm. Buried deep within the Ontario budget bill, Schedule 28 allowed, initially, for the government to privatize or outsource any government service. Under pressure from unions and health care advocates, the government now says the provision will be changed to only allow for the sell-off of Service Ontario, which provides government services like drivers' licenses, although there is nothing in writing that confirms this is the case.

Initially, Ontario's Schedule 28 allows for the government to privatize or outsource any government service.

Service Ontario generates $2.7 billion in annual revenues but only costs $270 million to operate, which comes to a 10-to-1 return on investment. Selling it off completely defies business logic. The most likely explanation is that a lobbyist or a bunch of them got to one or more senior bureaucrats or Cabinet ministers.

Worse than just the annual loss, though, is that the sale would be irreversible. As Council of Canadians researcher Adrienne Silnicki told us by email, "Once you privatize a government service, it's nearly impossible under the World Trade Organization, GATS or CETA to bring it back to the public if a future government chose to do so," she wrote. "If health care services are contracted out, under NAFTA, an American HMO could bid on it. If the same thing happened to Service Ontario, all that personal information gets sent to the States and is then shared with Homeland Security."

It's amazing how much junk you can load into an omnibus.

We've talked about the federal Bill before. Call it a Trojan Horse, a garbage truck or whatever. As most Canadians know, in one fell swoop, it's going to cost us all a lot of money, and force almost everyone to work two years longer before they can retire. In addition, C-38's effects will include wiping out environmental laws, workplace fairness, and many decades worth of federal expertise in every branch of science. It will put thousands of highly skilled professionals on the bricks and force them to compete for work of any kind with millions of other desperate workers.

No wonder the opposition parties are filibustering to delay this thing as long as possible. It's great to see Green Party leader Elizabeth May in a position to put her one-person caucus to good use. Because of her independent status in Parliament, she's able to propose hundreds of amendments to the bill on her own.

The likely result of the filibuster is nothing much except heightened public awareness. The bill will probably pass anyway, and there isn't an election scheduled for three years. The filibuster, however, has exciting possibilities. Numerically, the government could possibly be caught off guard and lose a vote, even a confidence vote. So we are happy to see the opposition parties working more or less together in hopes of catching a lucky break and forcing an election.

For readers and listeners, our advice is to talk up the filibuster with letters to the editor and calls to phone-ins, and hope for the best. If you're an Ontarian, while you're at it, raise a stink about Schedule 28. Gather around your TV sets, Canadians! Grab a double double, get set for a long fight, and by the way, please use reusable coffee mugs.

© Copyright 2012 Ish Theilheimer, All rights Reserved. Written For: StraightGoods.ca