Making sense of the House of Commons
Hello and welcome to Commons Sense!
In the interest of making it easier to track what our elected officials are up to, I’m going to be doing summaries of what’s happening in the House of Commons. I’ll be going through the Bills and Motions that were discussed each week and trying to break them down to something easier to understand for the rest of us.
The hope is to cut away all the controversies and distractions that have been plaguing politics and bring the attention back to the work that’s actually being done so it’s easier to hold your elected officials accountable.
Update Schedule
New Bills will be covered Monday and Friday. Updates on the House of Commons will be covered on Wednesday when it’s in session. (It’s currently on break)
Please note that I’m only one guy and sometimes life can get busy, so there may be periods where I fail to post any updates. Don’t worry, I’m still alive and will still get back to posting as soon as I can. If I ever decide to stop I’ll make sure everyone knows.
Disclaimers
I am not a lawyer, I am not trained in legalese. I’ll do my best to boil down what’s happening but some Bills can get extremely technical and it’s possible for me to get something wrong. If I do feel free to correct me.
For the sake of transparency, I am a left-leaning voter and generally support left-wing policies. I will attempt to keep any personal bias out of my breakdowns, and will make it clear when I’m stating my opinions. If anything I’ve said in my summaries show bias feel free to let me know so I can avoid repeating it.
Latest Posts
- What’s in the 2025 Budget? – Part 2Part 2 of what’s in the 2025 Budget.
- What’s new in the House? – Nov 3 to 7, 2025Bill Updates C-3 – An Act to amend the Citizenship Act (2025) A number of amendments had been proposed to the version of C-3 that came back from committee, which pretty much revert it back to what it was before it went to committee. A vote was held on the amendments and they passed with 170 in favour and 163 opposed. Party For Against Paired Liberal 163 0 1 Conservative 0 141 1 Bloc Quebecois 0 22 0 NDP 6 0 0 Green 1 0 0 Vote Record The reverted version of C-3 was then accepted with a similar vote,...
- What’s in the 2025 Budget? – Part 1Starting coverage of the 2025 federal budget. It’s a pretty hefty document so it’ll take a bit to get through everything.
- S-211 Dealing with the endless sports gambling adsS-211 creates a framework to control sports gambling ads in the country.
- What’s new in the House? – Oct 27 to 31Not a lot from last week. Lots of debate around C-3 but not much else. We’ve got a Committee Report back on the Conflict of Interest Act that got some attention though, so we’ll be looking at that!
Don’t wanna sound impatient. But is nothing happening in the house or you are still on the holiday break?
Technically both! New post will be up on Wednesday covering everything that happened while I was on break, followed by a return to the normal schedule for Mondays and Fridays. With the House technically on holiday break and the news that they’ll be prorogued until end of March this week will be the last Wednesday post for a while. (Which is fine, gives me some time to get some things set up that I’ve been trying to put together before the election happens. Exciting stuff ahead!)
Huh thanks for that. Didn’t know house’s holiday break is so long
Oh, the House’s holiday break isn’t that long. They’re pretty good about that, they were only supposed to be out a little more than a month. I just had a vacation planned at the end of November and for the sake of my holiday mental health opted to extend that break through December. Even avoiding really getting into the debates and whatnot the state of politics in our country gets exhausting real quick.
I guess the next update is happening next year.
Yeah, sorry, holidays got busy and I haven’t had much time to get anything written.
It’s ok! I was just a little worried but thanks for the heads up.
Please remember to speak of PM by his first name, with the ease you speak of the Conservative Leader, by his first name. Its cool to be left leaning, I’m right leaning and big on equality. Thanks and this is a great effort your doing. Stay strong!
Eh, fair. I tend to use “Trudeau” because it feels more specific than “Justin”, but now that you mention it I think he’s the only person I’ve been referring to by his last name instead of his first. I’ll be more careful about that going forward. Thanks for the feedback!