My story on the outcome of Bill C-393 at the Commons industry committee is hopefully going to be up on the national page of Xtra.ca tomorrow. But in the meantime, there are a couple of observations that I wanted to make.
The contentious section of the bill that was eventually voted down, which dealt with the one-licence solution, had plenty of debate. At first, Marc Garneau introduced a series of amendments, one of which would basically gut that section of the bill. It got voted down – the Conservatives were voting no to everything, and only Garneau ended up voting for this amendment. But because the Conservatives were voting no to everything, when it came time to vote to adopt the clause, Garneau voted with them, and it was defeated.
(The Grandmothers to Grandmothers campaign observers all stood up to hiss at this point, whereas they all applauded when the amendment was defeated).
Given the spirit of compromise, NDP MP Brian Masse withdrew about half the clauses of the bill, but with the defeated sections, what’s left in the bill as it heads to the House is pretty slim. More to come in the full story.
As well, Brian Masse put out a press release here.
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