4 Recorded Votes…but don't get too excited.
By knowhowtheyvote. Filed in Updates |
On Monday, I was shocked to turn on the live stream of the Legislature sitting to see “A Recorded Vote has been requested; Bells sounding for recorded vote.” If that weren’t enough, within 4 hours there had been 2 more recorded votes.
Had my lobbying actually worked? Was the system responding? Were MLAs finally standing up for accountability in the Legislature?
…Not really.
The first recorded vote was driven by politics. The PC Party, frustrated with the NDP Government’s budget, wanted to delay the passage of the budget and so they demanded a recorded vote on a very procedural and routine motion to close debate. One staff member at the Clerk’s office told me that he hadn’t seen a vote on this sort of matter in his 30+ years in the Legislature. So, the PC Party delayed the vote on the budget by taking the full hour allotted for parties to gather their members for the recorded vote on adjournment.
The second and third votes were more substantial, but not path-breaking. First was the motion that the House concur with the Committee of the Whole House on Supply. This is essentially a prerequisite motion needed in order to pass the Budget. Second was the Appropriations Act, 2009, which approves the spending of budget money for the public service. I can confidently say that MLAs did not demand recorded votes on these matters because of this campaign…if you look at the recorded votes for the 59th and 60th General Assemblies, at least half of them were motions to concur with the supply committee and the appropriations act. I suppose it has become tradition to record these votes, for whatever reason.
So, while we now have a total of 4 recorded votes in the 61st General Assembly (the fourth being the Appropriations Act at Third Reading), we are not witnessing positive change in favour of accountable representation…instead, we are seeing business and politics as usual in the Legislature.
While these votes were being recorded, Bills 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 and 29 (29 being the Budget Bill) all passed Second Reading with non-recorded votes. That means that the actual issues…the Province’s finances, changes to drunk driving laws, and a host of other issues that affect our lives were passed without a written record of which MLAs supported the bill and which MLAs opposed.
I’m glad the politicians had their fun with recorded votes on Tuesday. Maybe next time they can try using them for the right reasons.
