OTTAWA – Liberal MP Nate Erskine-Smith says he wants the House of Commons to sit for another week to study Prime Minister Mark Carney’s major projects bill.
Erskine-Smith was the only Liberal to vote against his own government’s closure motion, which limits debate time on Bill C-5.
The Liberals and Conservatives passed a closure motion on Monday that will push the bill through the House of Commons this week.
Smith says he’s never seen a bill of this magnitude pushed through the House at such a pace in his ten years as a Toronto-area MP.
He says he supports getting new projects built quickly but wants to see the bill studied more thoroughly and amended to remove contentious clauses that grant the executive more power.
He says he will only support the bill if it’s amended because he worries it would set a “dangerous precedent” and enable a future Conservative government to “gut environmental protections.”
