Senators are livid after Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland asked the Upper Chamber to pass a budget they hadn’t read.
Bill C-67, An Act For Granting To His Majesty Certain Sums Of Money, proposed billions in new spending to cover federal expenses to the end of fiscal year 2023/24, which ended Sunday evening.
Spending included $3.2 billion to cover federal debt interest charges, $2.2 billion for national defence, and $1.2 billion to cover pay increases for federal employees.
Senate managers sought approval to spend another $8.9 billion without disclosing the legal text of the bill, reported Blacklock’s Reporter.
“You need the bill to vote on it,” said Senator Elizabeth Marshall, a former provincial auditor.
“I haven’t seen the bill,” she said. “It’s not posted. I don’t know how we can vote on a bill that we haven’t seen.”
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland faced incredible pushback from the Finance Committee after she failed to attend numerous meetings on Budget 2023. She pushed back and called the opposition ‘filibuster’ an act of “bullying.”
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On Thursday, Bill C-67 quickly passed the Commons in eight minutes. The Senate only had an hour to review the bill before putting it to a vote.
The following day, the feds recorded a budgetary deficit of $25.7 billion for the fiscal year. Department of Finance data reflects spending until the end of January, reported The Canadian Press.
Freeland earlier pledged to commit to fiscal guardrails to cap deficit spending at $40 billion for the current fiscal year.
While tax revenues rose $10.5 billion, program expenses excluding net actuarial losses increased by $21.2 billion. Public debt charges rose by $10.3 billion.
According to the department’s monthly fiscal monitor, the deficit grew significantly from $6.4 billion during the same period last year.
Liberal Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland has failed to meet her own budget predictions as documented in a report by the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO).
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“Prudent spending is the government’s focus,” said Senator Patti LaBoucane-Benson, cabinet’s legislative deputy in the Senate. Failure to publish the bill was “really a House of Commons problem,” she said.
“This is an embarrassment,” chimed in Senator Donald Plett, the Senate Opposition leader. “I am being asked to vote on a bill I haven’t seen,” he added.
A similar instant happened at the onset of the COVID pandemic on March 13, 2020. At the time, Parliament passed without debate three budget bills to permit cabinet wartime spending powers for 90 days.
MPs did not receive any legislative text until hours after each bill received royal assent and became law, reported Blacklock’s Reporter.
“Panic is never, ever an excuse to override our ancient political conventions,” said Conservative MP Scott Reid at the time. “These conventions are the oldest and best protections that exist for our political liberties.”
Without parliamentary scrutiny, cabinet borrowed $350 billion by March 31, 2020 — greater than the total expenditures for the Second World War, when adjusted for inflation.
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