DAN ALBAS -- Why take the time to submit a Private Members Bill (PMB) when there little to no chance it might pass? The answer is to raise awareness to an issue

Conservative MP Dan Albas

Last week the House of Commons adjourned for what will likely be the last sitting of the 42nd Parliament prior to the October election. As a result of the adjournment, many government and private member bill's will also ultimately fail, because they did not make it through the House or the Senate prior to this adjournment.

For sake of interest, here is a summary of some of the government bill's that will not be moving forward.

• Bill C-27 “An Act to amend the Pension Benefits Standards Act, 1985”,

• Bill C-28 “An Act to amend the Criminal Code (victim surcharge)”,

• Bill C-34 “An Act to amend the Public Service Labour Relations Act and other Acts”,

• Bill C-38 “An Act to amend An Act to amend the Criminal Code (exploitation and trafficking in persons)”.

• Bill C-87 “An Act respecting the reduction of poverty”.

• also not receiving royal assent was Bill C-42 “An Act to amend the Canadian Forces Members and Veterans Re-establishment and Compensation Act, the Pension Act and the Department of Veterans Affairs Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts.”

There were roughly 18 different government bills that did not receive royal assent.  In total, the government introduced 102 bills, although some were routine such as appropriation acts or were related to the annual budget.

As this government had a majority, all of these bills could have received royal assent and became law ... which raises the question, “Why didn't they?”

The answers are varied.

Some bills are controversial, such as proposed changes to pension benefits. In other cases where controversial measures were essentially abandoned or the proposed changes were instead incorporated into an omnibus budget bill where they would not be singled out and extensively debated.

Some bills passed through the House of Commons but did not pass through the Senate. This was particularly common to private member’s bills (PMB).

One example of this was NDP MP Richard Cannings (South Okanagan—West Kootenay), with his Bill C-354 “An Act to amend the Department of Public Works and Government Services Act (use of wood)” that completed first reading in the Senate but will move no further.

The various Private Members Bills that I have also sponsored will not move forward. So why take the time to submit a PMB when there little to no chance it might pass? 

The answer is, to raise awareness to an issue.

In the example of MP Cannings' bill, to increase the use of wood in Government buildings. If there is wide spread support for the issue in question then a current or future Government can always adopt the idea.

This was something I experienced with two of my PMB's tabled in this Parliament.

The first proposed to amend the Bank Act to allow credit unions to continue using terms such as bank, banker and banking, as well as my legislation to have Registered Disability Savings Plans receive the same protection from creditors that are in place for RRSPs.

Both of these legislative initiatives were quietly adopted and passed via government omnibus budget bills.

This leads to my question this week:

"Do you support Members of Parliament drafting and proposing Private Member Bills, even if there is a small chance for success or do you view it as a waste of time?"

I can be reached at Dan.Albas@parl.gc.ca
You can also reach me Toll Frere at 1-800-665-8711