From: "John Beamish" 

Shortly after I posted I saw something to that effect.  But I still think
there's incredible naievte among those trying to find out.  Right off the
top they excluded the 5 sponsors of the bill.  I mean ... talk about a
perfect smokescreen!

The process is somewhat different here.  Bills are either introduced by the
Government or by an individual member (called, naturally, a "private
members bill").  Private Members bills are treated separately, go into
a pile and a handful are (randomly, I belive) drawn, are given limited
debate time and, if debate continuges past the limited time then the bill
fails because it never got to a vote.

Government bills get introduced, go to Committee for detailed examination
and change.  Since the committees are "sort of" proportionally
populated in a ratio similar to the ratio of members of the parties in the
house, then generally a government with a majority has a majority of the
people in the commitee reviewing the bill so the government's will tends to
prevail.  Generally speaking, the committee meetings are public so if you
have some time to kill or need to catch up on some sleep, you can just walk
in and listen.

The come out of committe, go back to the House get voted, passed (or
failed) and move on to the next phase.  If the bill is appropriations
(money to the rest of us) the failure of the bill is a loss of confidence
and the government falls.  If the bill is described by the government as a
vote of confidence, a failure here also means the government falls.

Because the government call fall (especially when there as, as now, a
minority government) the news channels and CBC will break into regular
programming when there is a vote that could cause the government to fall
and then broadcast the roll call of the vote.  It's actually a moment of
suspense because the balance of power is usually with the third or fourth
parties (or, as last time, with the 2 or 3 independents).  They begin by
askig for the votes For.  First the Government is polled; then the next
largest party; then the next and so on until the independents have been
polled.  Then they repeat the process asking for the votes Against.  It has
hung on until the last independent member or two on occasion since they
could vote for/against or abstain but generally one of the minority parties
decides to support the government and there are enough votes for the bill
to make the counting of the against votes an academic exercise.

If the bill passes then it goes to the Senate.  The Senate must pass
without amendment money bills.  Other bills they can debate and pass or
they can debate, ask the Commons to reconsider and then pass anyway.  On
rare occasions they can reject the bill.  Not sure what the process is at
that point because it's not a common occurrance.

On Tue, 29 Aug 2006 22:55:49 -0400, Randy  wrote:

> John Beamish wrote:
>> http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001428.php
>>  OK, ignore the somewhat distraught, frazzled commentary and focus on
>> the  parallel processes.  On the one hand, it (and, being from the GWN,
>> I was  definitely not aware of this) seems there is a way to block
>> bills by use  of a "secret hold".  If the hold is made,
the bill is
>> blocked and nobody  gets blamed because the 'culprit' (for lack of a
>> better word!) can't be  identified.
>>  In parallel, two groups (one left, one right) are polling senators to
>> find  out who placed the secret hold by asking each to go on record as
>> saying  he/she did/didn't place the hold.
>>  I'm not sure which I find most fascinating:  "secret
holds" or the
>> naievte  of those doing the calls to get the yea/nay answer and then
>> believing what  they are told.
>
> Mr. "The Internet is a bunch of tubes" Stevens appears to be
the culprit.

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