Partisan Paralysis In Parliment.

OTTAWA — They cost taxpayers more than $6 million a year to run. They're vital to passing laws in Canada's Parliament. And some of them are accomplishing absolutely nothing these days.

The partisan rancour paralyzing several House of Commons committees was on full display again at Monday's meeting of the Commons environment committee.

For the eighth consecutive meeting, a Conservative MP ran out the clock with a lengthy denunciation of an NDP climate-change bill that is supported by all other parties.

While his colleagues read the newspaper, checked their mail, wrote letters to constituents, or milled about the room and chatted, Watson defended his right to keep going.

"I'm not ashamed to sit here at committee and make my case about why this is bad. I'm not ashamed at all," said Conservative MP Jeff Watson.

"(This legislation) is absolutely bad for workers, and I'm not ashamed to say that. I'm not ashamed at all and I will use my full privileges as a member of Parliament ... and mount a very vigorous defence for their welfare."

It is a scene that has played out at several other parliamentary committees over recent weeks.

The opposition bands together in a move deemed hostile by the government.

Conservative MPs respond by walking out on meetings, or whiling away the hours by reading aloud from old public documents, or refusing to meet, or repeatedly adjourning proceedings, or running out the clock with marathon monologues that have lasted up to six hours.

Watson spent well over an hour Monday lambasting the NDP bill, which would force much stricter targets for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions by 2050 than the government says can be achieved.

It also calls for the government to create a transition fund for industry to deal with climate change.

Watson denounced the bill for not setting a dollar amount to the transition fund, saying it will force the government to deal with the exorbitant cost and dire economic impact. His colleague Mark Warawa was later given speaking privileges and he launched into a lengthy soliloquy of his own.

The Tories say the bill's target of an 80 per cent emissions cut by 2050 is unrealistic, and they cite experts who have described some of its provisions as unconstitutional.

The opposition says it's the government that is tossing aside democratic standards.

New Democrat MP Nathan Cullen said the Conservatives can't expect to get their way on every bill because they were elected with a minority government, and that they should respect the choice voters made in January 2006.

"The way this place functions and operates is the House that Canadians built for us," Cullen told the committee.

"They may not like it. They may not appreciate how the numbers work out or that their entire agenda doesn't get through - such is life.

"But to stall day after day, to come in here hour after hour wasting tax dollars ... we cannot continue to allow Canadians to see this circus that the government continues, day after day."

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