It is not surprising that many Canadian are cyncial of their federal Parliamentarians.
Example in point: Bills C-1 and S-1 have been published. Despite respectively being – in name – “An Act respecting the administration of oaths of office [1]” and an “Act relating railways [2]” – of course neither bill has anything to do with either topic and neither bill will pass first reading.
Apparently, it all has to do with a “custom” dating back over 400 years ago for “pro forma” bills. I didn’t find the explanation on LegisINFO [3] or Wikipedia [4] to be entirely satisfactory. Wouldn’t it be simpler to amend the Rules of the House to make these pro forma bills unnecessary?
Time for Parliament to enter the 21st century. While they are at it, let’s abolish the Monarchy in Canada and take “God” out of proclamations and other Parliamentary procedures (as in the proclamation summoning Parliament to meet).
Or perhaps I’ll leave those last two items to another day . . . .