Bills pushed through House of Commons at last minute won't be studied by Senate until February

Despite a sell to crowd authorities bills through and through their net stages before the House of Commons rose last Thursday, two pieces of priority budget and border legislation, C-4 and C-12, can't become law until at least February.

The Senate did not sit a week beyond the House of Commons this year, so late legislation can't pass through the upper chamber and receive royal assent until Parliament's back from its two-month recess.

"Bill C-4 and Bill C-12 are complex bills that the Senate intends to study in the new year," Fedio wrote. "There was no consensus to rush these two bills through the Senate in a single week.

"Senate leadership will discuss a plan to ensure these pieces of legislation are efficiently reviewed when the Senate sitting resumes on Feb. 3."

Fedio also pointed out that on Nov. 26, the Senate agreed to begin studying the government's fall budget implementation bill, C-15, at 11 different committees. This co-operation with the Carney government's most recent priorities, she suggested, limited senators' ability to pre-study other bills like C-4 and C-12 in the run-up to winter recess.

After months of backed-up legislating in the 44th Parliament, senators bristled last June when Prime Minister Mark Carney's newly elected government applied pressure on the Senate to accelerate the Liberals' new agenda in the 45th.

"Governments will understandably always push to get their agenda through Parliament as quickly as possible, but expediency should not dispense with our usual legislative process," Alberta Sen. Scott Tannas wrote earlier this fall.

Tannas voiced concerns shared by many of his colleagues about the increasing use of large omnibus bills that are challenging for senators to review quickly in detail.

"Our two-chamber system was deliberately designed for regional representation and minority interests to be integral in the lawmaking process," Tannas wrote.

"Too often, in the rush to pass bills before adjournment periods, senators face pressure not to make amendments because MPs have left Ottawa."

The Senate's published sitting calendar listed Dec. 11 as its final sitting day for 2025. The House of Commons had been scheduled to rise on Dec. 12.

Some years, however, the Senate sits later than the Commons before rising for its extended winter and summer breaks.

It's common for legislation to pass final stages in the House at the last minute, as legislative decks are cleared before recess. When appointed senators remain at work for a bit longer than the elected MPs, it's possible to move quickly to ensure priority bills become law, especially if measures are time-sensitive and their eventual passage is inevitable.

Last Thursday, after the final question period in the Commons for 2025, MacKinnon sought and received the unanimous support of MPs to pass both Bill C-4 and C-12 at third reading without a standing vote, sending both pieces of legislation over to the Senate.

C-4 had been debated extensively since it was introduced in June. It officially approves the personal income tax cut, consumer carbon tax changes and the GST rebate for new homebuyers that the Liberals already implemented last summer. It also changes the requirements for how political parties protect personal information under the Canada Elections Act.

The Senate took steps to expedite C-4 last June, including calling Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne for special committee testimony on June 17. That rush to pre-study its measures was rendered somewhat moot when C-4 failed to clear the Commons before its summer recess.

Measures in C-12 were originally introduced in late May as part of C-2, the Carney government's first attempt at omnibus border security legislation. When some parts of C-2 became controversial amid heated debate over its "snooping" provisions, among other measures, the government carved off sections it believed it could find enough opposition support to pass quickly and re-introduced only those measures as C-12 in October.

Committee amendments to C-12 were voted on at report stage after question period on Thursday afternoon. Minutes later, the House agreed to forego any further debate and let C-12 clear the Commons too, as part of MacKinnon's all-party agreement.

The same deal also allowed C-13, the legislation to implement the United Kingdom's accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, to clear second reading without a standing vote and move on to a House committee for further study.

The House of Commons rose at 4:18 p.m. The Senate rose five minutes later, at 4:23 p.m. All parliamentarians are now on their holiday recess for two months.

The House is scheduled to return on Jan. 26. The Senate doesn't resume sitting until the following week, on Feb. 3.

Senior reporter

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