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13 December 2006

The unbearable lightness of Loyola

Government House leader and finance minister Loyola Sullivan is apparently pleased that in one of the shortest legislative sessions in Newfoundland and Labrador history, the House of Assembly dealt with 35 bills.

What Sullivan won't acknowledge is that overall, the legislature currently sits only half the number of days per year than it did a decade and a half ago and that the content of legislation is meagre.

Fully 28 of the 35 bills passed were minor amendments to existing statutes. Among the bills passed in the short session, foreshortened even more than usual for this administration by Sullivan at the last minute:

Bill 66, An act to amend the provincial Court Act, 1991 and the Human Rights Code. In its entirety, the bill said the following:

PROVINCIAL COURT ACT, 1991

1. Subsection 12(1) of the Provincial Court Act, 1991 is repealed and the following substituted:

12. (1) Every judge shall retire upon attaining the age of 70 years.

HUMAN RIGHTS CODE

2. Section 9 of the Human Rights Code is amended by adding immediately after subsection (6) the following:

(7) The right under this section to equal treatment with respect to employment is not infringed where a judge is required to retire on reaching a specified age under the Provincial Court Act, 1991.


To paraphrase my grandmother, Sullivan doesn't have a job, he has a situation. Or as a good friend put it, being a cabinet minister is obviously a good job: you are in out of the weather and there is no heavy lifting.