OTTAWA – Government House leader Bardish Chagger is putting her opposition colleagues on notice that the Liberals will be invoking closure on debate in the Commons a lot more often.
The Trudeau government is backing down on some of the more contentious changes that it had been proposing to parliamentary procedure – changes that have had Conservative and NDP critics up in arms for weeks.
But Chagger says the result will require the government to use “time allocation” – shutting down debate, essentially – more often in order to get things done.
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In a letter to her opposition counterparts Sunday, Chagger said she would proceed only with those changes promised in 2015 election campaign, including having the prime minister deliver all the responses in one question period each week.
Chagger is letting go of more controversial proposals, which the opposition parties have denounced as an attempt by the Liberals to control the parliamentary agenda and curtail their efforts to hold the government to account.
The battle over reforming the ins and outs of parliamentary procedure had led to a lengthy filibuster at committee, with tensions spilling over into the House of Commons, even delaying the tabling of the federal budget.