The debate it deserves

Joan Burke is a right funny lady, telling the CBC that the ostensible reason for the delay in erection Sir Wilfred Grenfell as its own almost-but-not-quite-exactly-like-standalone university is:

"We are just at the point, I guess, with a busy schedule in the house of assembly and certainly the tedious work in developing the legislation, that we didn't have sufficient time … for the full debate that it deserved..."

That would be even funnier if it weren't coming from a minister in a government that is prone to shoddy legislative drafting, which had the longest post-election delay in recalling the legislature of any of the provinces which went to the polls last fall, where the elected legislature meets less frequently than the unelected Senate, or even the capital city's council, where the "busy schedule" and "tedious work" still allows for snow days and super-long Easter holidays, where the actual work of legislation is cursory at best, and getting cursory-er, and where the First Minister is openly and notoriously of the opinion that this whole legislature thing is just a waste of his precious time anyway.

But please, Joan, bring on this full debate.

Just remember: someone out there will be taking notes as to how many members speak to the bill, whether any procedural tactics are used to speed up or limit that full debate, and how long the tedious bill takes to progress throught the super-busy legislature... and the date set for the recall of that legislature this fall.