Thursday, May 13, 2010

Product Safety Bill Being Retooled, Gov’t Acknowledges

(Canada.com – Sarah Schmidt, Canwest News Service)

Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq is making changes to the government’s product safety bill after chastising Liberal senators for fiddling with the legislation last year.

The change of heart comes after a bruising few months late last year, when Liberal senators, who enjoyed a plurality in the upper chamber, amended the bill after it passed the House of Commons unanimously. Had the Senate not approved the handful of amendments in December, the bill would have become law before the new year. Instead, the amended bill was sent back to the House of Commons, where it died when Parliament was prorogued.

Aglukkaq has yet to reintroduce the bill because the government itself is quietly reworking the legislation, even though the original bill received the enthusiastic support from all three opposition parties in the House of Commons. Read more here.