Thursday, May 28, 2015

Immediate Action Required: Contact your Senators

Hi all:

I haven't posted on here in a while, partially because I was discouraged by the 100% strictly partisan vote about C-51 in the House of Commons (not a single person in Parliament broke with their party's line on C-51). The idea that regardless of what their constituents said or what they personally might think, every single person who voted did so based on party affiliation, kind of sapped my motivation to post here for a while, plus the rest of my life has been busy, so without a really important message to write about, I didn't post. But now I do have something important to say.

The bill has passed the House, and been debated and reviewed in the Senate. The final vote in the Senate, which is the real true final vote before this bill becomes law, will occur any day now. And... some of the Liberal senators are going to vote against. As of this writing, there are 5 senators (some Liberal, some Conservative) who have declared they are voting for C-51, and 15 (all Liberal) who have declared they are voting against. And 62 who have not declared their intentions.

The Conservatives still have a majority, but if the Senate is less partisan than the House, given that there has been a strong backlash even within the Conservative base, there's a chance to stop the bill just short of the goal line, as happened with the original CSIS act in 1983. So what I'm asking you to do,  if you're reading this, is to tell any Senators in your province who are undeclared that it's important that they vote against. Please do it now rather than later.

Source of "5 for, 15 against, 62 undeclared", and also a tool for contacting your senators: https://stopc51.ca/senate?

If you want your senators' full contact info, go here: http://www.parl.gc.ca/SenatorsBio/default.aspx?sortord=P&Language=E