Bill 66: Bill 61 In Disguise
Written by Paul Graif on 25 September 2020
Bill 61 that was tabled back in June, has been re-tabled by the CAQ Government in an attempt to jump start the economy by speeding up mega infrastructure projects, such as the Mercier bridge southbound span replacement. MCK Chief Ross Montour joined us today on Tetewathara, the Partyline Talk show on K1037 saying that this came as no surprise:
“We knew back once it was pulled in June, you’ll recall that it was supposed to have gone to the Assembly for passage hopefully by June 12th, because of the opposition from the opposition parties and the different groups, they decided to pull it and said they were going to redraft it. They fully intended to bring it back to the table for passage and that’s basically what they’ve done.”
Chief Montour says not much has changed between the 2 Bills:
“They redrafted it somewhat, they retooled it somewhat, in order to, I think to bring people in line in terms of the opposition parties, but it is essentially, in my view, too much the same Bill under a different number.”
The new Bill is now known as bill 66 and the Government says they want to reassure critics who condemned Bill 61 for going too far in limiting environmental reviews.
