Omnibus Bills
In the world of books, an Omnibus is a collection of books that have already been published that find a second life bound together as one large book.
Over the past few decades Canadian governments have been collecting disparate groups of draft legislation together and calling the total Omnibus Bills. Currently,
Like an omnibus book volume, an omnibus bill is substantially larger than is usual for any single bit of legislation. The physical enormity of an omnibus bill means that the average omnibus bill doesn’t receive the same scrutiny that an ordinary piece of legislation would.
It seems to me that one major obligation of the government in a democratic nation like ours is to understand the laws that the legislature passes.
That’s the primary function of our elected representatives.
If laws are bundled together and passed en masse without sufficient time allotment for our representatives to properly scrutinize, consider and debate, perhaps the government ought not to be passing such laws.
What is more important than being sure the laws they make are in fact good laws?
