(QUEENS PARK) Randy Hillier (Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox & Addington), Attorney General Critic for the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, is calling out the government’s inclusion of unrelated aspects in its cannabis legislation as an abuse of process and has demanded that they are tabled and voted on separately.
“Tossing school bus camera legislation and new policies on vaping into a bill that is meant to be about the distribution of cannabis in this province is not only promoting dishonest discussion, it is frankly a complete abuse of the legislative process,” remarked Hillier. “It’s impossible to have a proper debate on the merits of the specific legislation in Bill 174 when it is mixed in alongside a multitude of other unrelated policies.”
MPP Hillier will table a procedural motion on Tuesday, November 14th that if carried would break up Bill 174 into multiple new bills based on legislative topic, ensuring that each unrelated section of the bill can be debated and voted on independently.
“There is certainly nothing wrong with debating and discussing the proposed legislation within Bill 174, however that can’t be done properly and to a standard expected from our Legislature when omnibus style bills of this type are recklessly introduced,” said Hillier. “It is my hope that this procedural motion will pass so that we can get to properly debating this legislation without unrelated distractions.”
Randy Hillier, MPP Lanark Frontenac Lennox, is a co-founder of the Lanark Landowners Association, which was brought to life to address government imposition on the rights of private property owners, and to address the regressive regulatory impositions that government was bringing down upon farmers and business owners in rural Ontario.
In 2006, Randy resigned as President of the OLA in order to run as a candidate for the Progressive Conservatives. Randy was elected in the 2007 provincial election.
Randy a long-time resident of Lanark County, an electrician by trade and member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), continues to co-publish and edit rural Ontario’s successful magazine “The Landowner.”
