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Orphaned Bills – Ontario
Watchers of the Ontario Legislature will already be aware that the House proroged last night, ending the 2nd session of the 39th Legislature. With an election scheduled for October 6, this effectively ends the Parliament.
As I did with the federal Parliament, I’ve compiled a list of “orphaned” legislation, and its status at prorogation. Please note that this list includes only the Public Bills, including Private Members’ Public Bills. Additional information on the bills which were defeated or which passed and received Royal Assent is available on the Ontario Legislative Assembly’s website.
It would be interesting to know which of the abandoned bills (it’s not their parents that have died, it’s the bills themselves…) are government bills and which private member’s bills. I suspect almost all are the latter. There are a few useful ones among them, though.
I am pleased at the diminution of the number of bills named after dead people, particularly dead babies or children. I see only three here (not counting an amendment to the existing Arthur Wishart Act), and the Alexandar Graham Bell Parkway Act is a different matter than picking the victim of some problem that the bill intends to solve. A few years ago there were eight of them (including one I think of as the ‘spared baby act’, since the child for whom the bill was named did not die in the accident whose repetition – for others – the bill was intended to prevent.)
One bill in the just-ended session was named for the living person who persuaded the MPP to introduce the bill. That is unusual.
Wendy’s list does not include this dead child statute, though, because it was passed with unanimous consent (no doubt one of the benefits that a sentimental title is intended to achieve for the bill.)
BTW the links to all the bills on this list do not work for people outside Wendy’s Intranet – but they are, as she points out, on the Legislative Assembly site.