Ottawa

Time gentlemen

The Liberals have released figures documenting what they believe to be Mr. Harper’s abuse of power.

By their reckoning, 21 government bills have been debated over the first 66 days of this Parliament. Five of those bills (23.8%) have been subject to time allocation motions and time allocation motions have been passed a total of nine times. By comparison, they say, under the last Liberal majority government Parliament sat for 419 days and debated 153 government bills. Eight of those (5.2%) were subject to time allocation motions and a total of ten time allocation motions were passed.

The Liberals report that, per sitting day, the Harper government has used time allocation more than any government since time allocation was added to the standing orders in the mid-1960s. Furthermore, they say time allocation has been invoked after an average of three hours and 53 minutes of debate, while the last Liberal majority did so after an average of eight hours and 22 minutes.

Previous coverage of this issue is compiled here.

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