Jay Currie

The Liberals seem to be trying on the coup d’etat meme about the Tories flat footed response to their Kyoto bill. Over at Alan’s I posted this comment:

While it does take a bit of gall for LIBERALS to suggest that there are constitutional rules after the Dumpling’s bob and weave on confidence in the last Parliament, there is no question at all that upon receiving royal assent even the dumbest law passed by Parliament is, er, the law.

However, and I wonder if there is a Tory with the constitutional knowledge to argue this, the way I read the proposed bill the Government would have “to submit its plan for perusal within 60 days by the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy.”

The what!?

I can imagine that a Canadian Statute might require presentation of a plan to, er, Parliament or a Commission of that Parliament or even a Judicial Inquiry; but the “National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy”. Pray which level of government is this? What is its constitutional status? Does it have the power to compel witnesses? Issue regulations? Call in the UN?

If the Tories are smart they will let the Bill sail through the House and Senate, rush it off for Royal Assent and, that day, pop into the SCC and suggest that it is entirely unconstitutional as it creates a novel fourth (or is it fifth) level of government well beyond the scope of even the most inebriated of the debates in Charlottetown.

Dicey is redlining in the cool dark earth.

The goofiness of the Liberals’ requirement can be underscored if you replace “National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy” with, say, the CD Howe Institute or the David Suzuki Foundation or the governing committee of the Petroleum Club.

Now, do the Tories have the wit to point this out???