Today marks the beginning of the opposition filibuster in the House of Commons. Bill C-38, the budget implementation act, is over four hundred pages in length and was brought in by our Reform Prime Minister, Stephen Harper.
Bill C-38 will amend 70 separate pieces of legislation, and through the use of time allocation, Members of Parliament were only given a week to read through the entire bill. Today is the (eventual) final vote on passage of the bill before it goes to the Senate, which will approve it much more quickly than the House will today.
Normally, the opposition parties can only propose amendments during the committee stage of a bill, but the Green and Bloc MPs, by virtue of not being recognized as official parties, do not have committee assignments. Thus, they are permitted to present amendments prior to third reading.
This also presented an opportunity for the NDP and Liberals to present additional amendments, and leads us to tonight's filibuster. In order to be open for consideration and a vote, the amendments must be read into the record, and then voted on individually. At the last known count, there are at least 799 amendments that have been read into the record.
The reading itself too just over five hours, and we're about half an hour away from the actual voting on each amendment, which has been slated to take anywhere between 15-28 hours.
It's unlikely that any of the amendments will actually be passed, and with 799 separate issues that are completely unrelated to the others, it's going to be a long day of the Speaker proclaiming the nays have it.
While this is going on, Canadians are rallying against the bill with #13heroes rallies at every Conservative MP's office. Thirteen was chosen as that's the number of Conservatives that need to vote against the budget to defeat it and trigger a new federal election, based on the current makeup of Parliament.
I'll try to update today and tomorrow as it becomes possible and if anything fascinating happens. More likely than not, this will come down to a battle of which caucus can keep its members awake and in the building, since any MP that leaves the House cannot vote in any subsequent amendment or the actual budget vote.
EDIT 1: Voting starts at 12:55am Eastern Standard Time. The doors will be tiled, and the furious whipping begins. Good luck to MPs from all sides, I sure hope they took care of all their biological needs, it's gonna be insane from here on in.
Wed Jun 13, 2012 at 9:48 PM PT: Final count is 870 amendments, projected to be 26 hours of voting without stopping. Yeehaw! Let the games begin!
Wed Jun 13, 2012 at 10:13 PM PT: kady o'malley @kady
As many of you have noticed, there are a dozen or so Conservative MPs missing from their seats on the opposition side of the House.
That's an interesting number, since 13 is what's needed to beat this monstrosity of a bill. The whips are now going to be at their absolute best, especially later in the voting.
Wed Jun 13, 2012 at 11:11 PM PT: The House Speaker has consolidated the amendments, there will only be 159 amendments voted on. So about 7 per hour at the current rate.
8:23 PM PT: It is finally and mercifully over. Contrary to the predictions of myself and others, the voting will end after just over 22 hours of non-stop voting. Four NDP MPs, as well as Green party leader Elizabeth May, stayed and voted in all 160 divisions in the omnivote. Members of all parties are quite pleased and excited, with each party giving themselves quite a standing ovation for their efforts. It's quite jovial in the House, which I presume is because they're too tired to be angry at one another.
Unfortunately, not a single opposition amendment was passed in the entirety of the event. Congratulations to all MPs, y'all survived the 24 hour wake... err I mean you all did your jobs for an extended period of time.