Committee meetings cancelled following filibuster

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 11/10/2018 (2712 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Newspaper proprietors Ken and Christine Waddell drove two hours to Winnipeg to participate in a legislative committee hearing Thursday night — on their 49th wedding anniversary, no less — but it was all for naught.

The meeting was cancelled when the opposition Liberals and an independent MLA stalled proceedings in the legislature for hours, preventing the Waddells and dozens of other members of the public from presenting their views to MLAs.

Two concurrent committee meetings were to be held so that the public could comment on a total of five government bills. But the Liberals, aided by independent MLA Steven Fletcher (Assiniboia), used a string of recorded votes to hold up proceedings. They said they were upset that the governing Progressive Conservatives hadn’t allowed sufficient time for debate on a budget-implementation bill and a money-supply bill.

“It’s very annoying to say the least,” Ken Waddell said. “We gave up our anniversary to come in here to speak at this committee meeting. And to not be allowed to speak is ridiculous to say the least.”

That was the sentiment of many would-be presenters.

The Waddells — who own and publish the Neepawa Banner, the Rivers Banner and myWestman.ca — had come to decry a provision in Bill 8, which would no longer require that certain government notices be published in newspapers. (While the government has announced it would delay proclaiming those provisions of the bill, newspaper publishers wanted it to go a step further and eliminate them from the legislation altogether.)

“We care very much about the democratic process, and we’re thankful we still have (public) committee hearings on bills in this province,” Christine Waddell said, adding that she hoped the meeting would be rescheduled and that proper notice would be given.

Many of the would-be presenters, such as the Waddells, drove in from out of town — one from as far as Dauphin. The government had given presenters only two days’ notice of the meetings.

By deadline, however, it appeared all but certain that the public hearings would not occur. Liberal house leader Jon Gerrard said the party was prepared to continue its protest till midnight, if necessary, ruling out any chance the committees would meet.

The governing PCs and the Opposition NDP were highly critical of the Liberals and Fletcher.

“I think it’s absolutely disgraceful,” government house leader Kelvin Goertzen said. “We are ready to hear from the public. The Liberals clearly are not.”

Gerrard said if presenters are upset, they should direct their anger at the Pallister government. The Tories wanted to give second reading to both the budget implementation bill and the supply bill Thursday without meaningful debate, even though there had been ample opportunity to do that over the past two days, he said.

“I feel for the people who came here,” Gerrard said. “The government sets the agenda. They set the committee hearings. They knew the deadline was there (for second reading debate). They knew this could happen. So, it’s the government’s fault for messing up.”

However, NDP deputy house leader Matt Wiebe said there was no reason to hold up the public hearings Thursday evening.

The government had previously agreed to an additional nine hours of debate on the budget bill, he said.

“When you have rooms full of people who are ready to present… to their elected officials, it’s our duty to (allow them) to do that,” Wiebe said.

larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca