'Real' Filibuster Beneficial to Canadian Families, Says Activist
by Chad Groening
June 2, 2005
(AgapePress) - A Canadian pro-family activist is hopeful that a filibuster by Conservative members of the Justice Committee will successfully halt the same-sex "marriage" bill being pushed by the Liberals in Parliament.This week the Liberal government backed down from its effort to fast-track the controversial legislation through Parliament. It has given Conservatives an additional week to present 22 additional witnesses before the Justice Committee, which had wanted to end the hearings by June 9.
Brian Rushfeldt of the Canada Family Action Coalition says unlike the filibusters of judicial appointments in the U.S. Senate, the Canadian Conservatives are using a true filibuster.
"It's basically what I would consider [to be] a real filibuster in the sense of the technicality of how they're going about that right in the committee itself," Rushfeldt explains. "That's part of the process that they're employing now."
The CFAC spokesman is praising the Conservatives' tactics. "The Conservative members of the Justice Committee have been not attending meetings, they've been calling for extra witnesses, [and] they've been testifying long periods where they will end up lengthening the testimony," he observes. "There's a number of procedural maneuvers that are going on that have prevented the committee from fast-tracking this like the Liberals would have liked to have seen."
Rushfeldt explains the benefit of the filibuster. "[I]f we can delay this committee from getting through the minimal public hearings that it's supposed to be doing, there is certainly a likelihood that the [legislation] can't get through third reading before the summer recess," he says.
That recess is scheduled for June 23. Rushfeldt hopes there will be a new election by the fall, which would effectively kill the bill.
Chad Groening, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
