When is a budget a bulldozer?

Sometimes budgets contain more than spending proposals. Sometimes governments put in provisions for non-monetary matters. This is often when a government has a majority or when a minority government figures it can get away with it because the opposition doesn’t want to have an election.

Opposition parties do not have to like it. And sometimes they stand up and demand the offending non-budget items be removed.

In spring 2005, Environment Minister Stephane Dion wanted to jump start the long-delayed Kyoto plan funded in the budget. Paul Martin’s government was a minority, and Ralph Goodale was finance minister. Dion managed to convince the PM to include amendments to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act to expedite the listing of greenhouse gases as substances capable of regulation under CEPA. Leader of the official opposition Stephen Harper was enraged. He did not accept that such amendments should be in the budget, threatening to bring down the government if the budget implementation bill did not have the CEPA amendments removed. NDP Leader Jack Layton agreed for different reasons, but to the same effect. It was front page news in the Globe and Mail. Much to the disappointment of climate action groups, the Martin government removed those amendments. The budget passed.

The 2009 budget also had non-budgetary items. Some removed the right to pay equity for women in the public service -- leaving it to the vagaries of negotiation. Less noticed were the amendments to the Navigable Water Protection Act. It is essentially gutted in the omnibus budget implementation bill.

Waterways capable of navigation were protected under common law. When Canada came into being, in the year Sir John A. Macdonald was Prime Minister, they were protected by law. The law Harper does not like. Obstructions, whether dams, bridges or fish farms, required a review under the environmental assessment legislation. 98% of such reviews passed speedily without more than an internal departmental assessment. Even under the NWPA-unamended, the Minister of Transport had the power to exempt any project that does not “interfere substantially with navigation.”

The changes in the budget bill did away with protecting waterways by law and leave it to the discretion of the Minister of Transport. As Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said derisively at the Finance Committee, there was no point in protecting “some little creek that’s nearly dried up.” (February 23, 2009)

The budget bill passed the House before people really noticed the changes. Suddenly, groups of anglers and canoeists, of conservationists and First Nations realized the only hope to protect Canadian waterways was the Senate. A large number of Senators protested these changes. Some Liberals like Art Eggleton, Tommy Banks and Joseph Day spoke out. So too did former Progressive Conservatives – Lowell Murray and Norm Atkins. The media didn’t notice and meanwhile on the House side, Harper and Flaherty berated Ignatieff and accused the “Liberal Senate” of playing politics and delaying passage of the budget. This from the government that put forward an unbelievable November economic statement -- calling for austerity and five years of surpluses instead of a stimulus package. This from the government that shut down the House of Commons from November to January, as the economic situation worsened.

The Senate promised hearings on the non-monetary parts of the budget. Suddenly yesterday afternoon, the bill moved from the Finance Committee to the floor of the Senate for final passage. Clearly, Ignatieff ordered the Senate to get the bill passed. It was just noticed that the provision for EI would apply to people who qualified by March 1. But those people who qualified, would still be entitled and retroactively to that date. Spooked, the Liberals took no chances. Senator Lowell Murray tried, putting forth an amendment to take Pay Equity and the NWPA out of the bill. He was supported by Elaine McCoy of Alberta and a handful of others. Murray’s amendment failed. The budget sailed through. The media never bothered to report why so many members of the Senate were concerned.

Every Canadian who cares about our waterways must feel shock and outrage. Our environment was held hostage to assistance to the unemployed. The Harper government is clearly the villain here, but what of Ignatieff? Harper managed to threaten an election and get the Martin government to remove environmental protection from the 2005 budget implementation bill.

We will never know what would have happened if Ignatieff had stood up to Harper and, playing a threat of election or coalition, insisted the offending, non-monetary portions be removed.

Had he done so, the media would have noticed. Public outrage would have had a chance of forcing Harper to remove those sections. The protection of navigable waters would have remained intact. Did he agree these provisions stood in the way of the shovel ready agenda? Did he regret failing to act to protect our environment? So far, he has not said. The media has not asked. All that is certain is that a key piece of environmental legislation has been slashed. Harper set the agenda; Ignatieff executed it.

It has never been clearer why Green MPs are desperately needed in the House.