Take a look below and you'll see the bills on the government order paper for the fall sitting.
Looks like a lot of stuff.
But looking more closely and you can see an unbelievably light sitting. Now that's amazing- appalling to some - considering this is coming from a government that has been over a year in office on its second mandate and that hasn't sat in the legislature since last spring.
The current administration is planning to repeal a $4000 award for students pursuing pre-doctoral studies in history and political science. Not replace. Repeal. The award was established in 1968 to honour jack Pickersgill, one of the architects of Confederation and for many years the province's cabinet representative in Ottawa.
They will repeal - not replace - an act aimed at controlling venereal disease, another allowing midwifery, and two acts separately to repeal the agreement transferring the old Labrador Linerboard Mill to Abitibi.
Most of the agenda is routine and in many cases the repeal of spent statutes, like the ones related to Labrador Linerboard could have taken rolled into one omnibus bill. In the case of the Linerboard bills, they should have been repealed when the Stephenville mill closed two years ago on Danny Williams' first watch! Likewise, The school boards association act ought to have been repealed when the school boards were abolished by the current administration in favour of the entirely unwieldy school districts.
All these repeals are only separated out into individual bills in order to make it look like more is being done than actually is.
As for the repeal of health statues, that would normally be done by replacing them with another. A new midwifery act - long overdue in the province - would have a clause at the end getting rid of the old one. Instead, midwives are no more. At one point there was an implementation committee to oversee the introduction of new legislation but clearly that is now dead but as minutes from a 2007 meeting attest, government has been headed down the road of abolishing midwives for some time.
Repealing the statute aimed at combating venereal disease makes no sense on the face of it. Perhaps there is good reason but there is nothing government has said so far - it has said nothing at all - which suggests that venereal disease is no longer an issue in the province.
This list of bills is a sign the current administration, after only five years in office, has run out of whatever ideas it had.
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- An Act To Amend The Provincial Court Act, 1991 (Bill 50) [
- An Act To Remove Anomalies And Errors In The Statute Law. (Bill 53) [Routine piece of legislation that fixes misplaced punctuation among other things]
- An Act Respecting The Practice Of Dentistry. (Bill 61)
- An Act To Repeal The Venereal Disease Prevention Act. (Bill 58)
- An Act To Repeal The Private Homes For Special Care Allowances Act. (Bill 57)
- An Act To Repeal The Midwifery Act. (Bill 56)
- An Act To Repeal The Homes For Special Care Act. (Bill 55)
- An Act To Repeal The School Boards’ Association Act. (Bill 54)
- An Act To Amend The Student Financial Assistance Act No.2 (Bill 52)
- An Act To Amend The Mineral Act. (Bill 62)
- An Act To Amend The Forestry Act, No.2. (Bill 65)
- An Act To Amend The Rooms Act. (Bill 64)
- An Act To Amend The Management of Information Act. (Bill 63)
- An Act Respecting Fire Protection Services in the Province. (Bill 60)
- An Act To Provide For The Organization and Administration of Emergency Services in the Province. (Bill 59)
- An Act To Amend The Highway Traffic Act. (Bill 66)
- An Act To Amend The Securities Act. (Bill 49)
- An Act Respecting Certified Management Accountants. (Bill 51)
- An Act To Repeal The Pickersgill Fellowship Act, Bill 4
- An Act To Repeal The Memorial University Foundation Act, Bill 42
- An Act To Repeal The Labrador Linerboard Limited Agreement Act, 1979, Bill 47.
- An Act To Repeal The Labrador Linerboard Limited Agreement (Amendment Act), 1979, Bill 48.
- An Act To Repeal The Newfoundland And Labrador Computer Services Limited Amendment Act, Bill 46.
- An Act To Amend The Real Estate Trading Act, Bill 39.
- An Act To Repeal The Corporations Guarantees Act, Bill 43.
- An Act To Repeal The Certified Public Accountants Act, Bill 44.
- An Act To Repeal The Chartered Accountants And Certified Public Accountants Merger Act, Bill 45.
- An Act To Amend The Income Tax Act, 2000 And To Repeal The Financial Corporations Capital Tax Act, Bill 38.
- An Act To Amend The Arts Council Act. (Bill 40)