(OTTAWA) The House of Commons took an unscheduled break Monday morning after no MPs came forward to sponsor the bill it was to debate.
The House needed to tackle a bill that would recognize the essential role that artists and the arts play in all dimensions of Canadian life.
“It will be the basis for the development of policies needed for the arts, museums and performance halls, art galleries, workshops, publishing houses and more,” explained, during a final debate last year, Manitoba Senator Patricia Bovey, who introduced the bill in the Senate.
The Upper House passed the bill in October.
It was to be the platform for “reviews, updates, and much-needed policy settings for the creative sector in this country, which is our country’s third-largest employer, but whose creators represent the largest percentage of workers living in below the poverty line,” Ms. Bovey argued.
The bill was to be sponsored in the House of Commons by Liberal MP Jim Carr.
Mr Carr died last December, however, and no MPs were found to take his place in sponsoring the bill until it was put on the House agenda on Monday morning.
Speaker Anthony Rota was forced to adjourn for an hour until MPs were ready to take up the next item on the agenda.
A spokesman for Government House Leader Mark Holland said it is up to MPs themselves to show up to sponsor a private member’s bill. The government has no role in determining who sponsors them, Holland said.
More than 600 people participated in Ms. Bovey’s consultations before her bill was introduced in the Senate.
The senator, who will soon turn 75, is expected to leave the Senate on May 15.
