Ottawa

The Liberal standard

In justifying the time it is allowing for debate of its budget implementation act, the Harper government is deferring to the time allotted for debate for the Liberal government’s budget in 2005.

That Liberal budget apparently received 21.8 hours of debate in the House on second reading. Here is the bill as it was presented when it was first tabled in the House. In print format, it measures 128 pages.

Here is the budget implementation act that the Conservatives tabled last week. In print format, it measures 452 pages. It is apparently set to receive 28.5 hours of debate.

The Liberal bill received 0.1703125 hours per page. To match that standard, the Conservative bill would have to be debated for just under 77 hours (76.98125 hours to be precise).

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