Long hours lead to little progress at Nova Scotia legislature

Progress at the Nova Scotia legislature has slowed to a snail’s pace this week as the government calls late hours for debate and opposition parties respond with delay tactics to slow down the process of passing bills.

What has become a regular custom in recent years at Province House in an era of successive majority governments started Tuesday, after government House leader Kim Masland extended hours from the customary 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. to 1 p.m. to 11:59 p.m.

In response, opposition MLAs are using the tactics at their disposal to slow the government’s business, including speaking for up to an hour each and calling for recorded votes.

Each time a recorded vote is called for, bells ring in the House to alert members there will be a vote. They can ring for up to an hour and during that time, no business can take place.

“What I’ve indicated to the government is if you’re going to call the hours that you’re calling, then we’re going to use the hours that you call,” said Liberal House leader Derek Mombourquette.

Mombourquette said his caucus is happy to stay at the legislature for an extended period of time in order to question the government on issues such as housing, health care and affordability.

As an indication of that position, the Liberals arrived for evening debate on Wednesday with a stack of amendments about a foot tall for various bills before the House.

NDP House leader Susan Leblanc said it seems as though the Tory government was looking to get out of the House as quickly as possible.

With late hours being called, Leblanc said part of the opposition’s aim is to ensure key pieces of legislation are debated during regular hours when the public has the ability to tune in and reporters are present to cover proceedings.

“These are the things that I’m concerned about,” she said. “This is not the way to make law.”

Mombourquette and Leblanc pointed to key bills for their respective caucuses that they want to see thoroughly debated — during regular hours — including legislation that would give the provincial government sweeping powers over development in Halifax Regional Municipality, a new service agreement with municipalities that has proved unpopular with the council for Cape Breton Regional Municipality and a bill overseeing the regulation of health-care professionals.

Leblanc said her caucus would also be bringing forward their own amendments as certain bills are called for debate.

‘It’s ridiculous’

Masland, however, takes a different view on the opposition’s tactics — the same tactics the Tories employed when they were in opposition.

“It’s ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous,” she said.

In many cases, she said, the opposition is delaying votes only to support the measures when it comes time for the actual vote. Masland defended the late hours she’s calling and offered no suggestion that a change was on the horizon.

“I call hours to 11:59 p.m. to make sure that I have enough hours to finish the work of the people,” she said. “There’s many people in this province that work until 11:59 at night to get the job done. We’ll do that.”

Bills could be passed sooner if the opposition wasn’t throwing up roadblocks, said Masland. Leblanc countered by saying they could also be passed during regular hours, if the government wasn’t in such a rush to get out of the House.

Masland said there has been “ample opportunity” to debate legislation and the Liberals have favoured bell ringing to actual debate.

She suggested the real reason the Liberals are stalling business is because they’re unhappy their caucus does not have a deputy Speaker of the House position, something Mombourquette denied.