For the second time this year, the Harper government has introduced an omnibus bill (C-45) to change legislation in a number of different and often seemingly unrelated areas. They have also passed a motion to limit debate, as if hiding the issues in an omnibus bill wasn't limiting enough. Mr. Flaherty claims that C-45 has nothing in it that wasn't introduced in the budget bill (C-38), but that is not entirely true (http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/10/18/f-vp-hall-omnibus.html). Furthermore, they are about to pass the The Canada-China Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPA), this time without debate at all, to give Chinese government interests unprecedented control over Canadian natural resources (see http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2012/10/16/China-Investment-Treaty/ for some scary details - very appropriate for Halloween, immediately after which the treaty will be enacted). Regardless of political leanings, these issues should raise red flags of alarm for all Canadians. In my opinion, the omnibus approach is abuse of power, and demonstrates blatant disregard for democratic processes. The investment treaty defies any logic I can see "in the interest of Canada". Regardless of what motives Mr. Harper has, using omnibus bills and legislative tricks to limit or entirely circumvent debate is cowardly and undemocratic. Selling off our resources appears to add insult to injury. To make matters worse, the lack of coverage of these issues in Canadian media is disturbing. Have we become so numb to the shenanigans of politicians that we don't care? It is critical that Canadians pay attention to the apparent proliferation of parliamentary tactics to avoid debate (see http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Omnibus+bills+prorogation+chip+away+democracy/7420727/story.html) before our beautiful country ceases to be a democracy.
Staffan Lindgren
Prince George
