Fish in Flooded Fields Keep Tired MP Motivated

Ottawa – Last week, local MP Scott Reid finished a legislative marathon in the House of Commons along with all of his colleagues.  The Opposition parties proposed over a hundred tiny amendment proposals to the Conservative government’s budget bill.  Each amendment required a separate vote in the House of Commons. According to parliamentary rules, once the voting begins, it cannot be halted unless there is unanimous consent.

This particularly gruelling bout of voting began immediately after Question Period on Wednesday and continued until late Thursday night – lasting well over 23 hours.

“It wasn’t easy to stay alert for so long with so few breaks,” commented Scott Reid. “Everybody was pretty bleary-eyed and the air was pretty stale after a while.”

A key piece of the bill will change nonsensical fish habitat rules that have been a bane to many property owners who have had flooded fields.  Last year, for example, a country music festival was cancelled in Saskatchewan because the festival grounds were flooded. Pumping the water off the grounds wouldn’t have been a problem – but the Department of Fisheries and Oceans forced the organizers to keep the water there to preserve the ‘fish habitat’.

“A flooded field is not a fish habitat and should never be considered as such,” said Reid. “Knowing that I was helping to fix this bureaucratic wrong was no small part of what kept me motivated during those long hours.”

Scott Reid has stood against needless bureaucracy and unnecessary restrictions on personal freedom several times.  Recently he has advocated to include property rights in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms as well as voting to scrap anti-free speech clauses from the Canadian Human Rights Act.

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For further information contact:

Phil Joannou
Communications Assistant to Scott Reid, MP
613-947-2277

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