Legislative Reports: House of Commons.
By Canadian Parliamentary Review
- Release Date: 2002-09-22
- Genre: Law
Description
Prior to adjourning for the summer on Thursday, June 20th, the House of Commons passed a number of controversial bills including Bill C-5, the Species at Risk Act and Bill C-15B, a legislative package aimed at amending the Criminal Code in relation to cruelty to animals and firearms. In both cases, time allocation was invoked by the government. In addition, the government's pesticides legislation passed in June and a new legislative package aimed at implementing the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention was introduced and sent to a legislative committee. On June 11th the Prime Minister tabled his long-awaited ethics guidelines for members of Cabinet, following months of controversy about alleged conflict of interest on the part of several key Ministers. The ethics package, contained three documents: A Guide for Ministers and Secretaries of State; the Ministry and Crown Corporations and; the Ministry and Activities for Personal Political Purposes. The new guidelines will require cabinet ministers to reveal within 30 days the names of donors to underground leadership campaigns. As well as restricting the activities of cabinet members, the guidelines provide more independence to the federal ethics counsellor, although they do not provide for an arms' length counsellor who would report directly to Parliament. The new rules prohibit Ministers from lobbying Crown corporations and unions, and require all political donations to be reported.
