Late Wednesday night, a House of Commons private member’s bill to offer lower Canada Post shipping rates for library materials passed third reading and will be debated by the Senate.
“It passed without a vote, unanimous,” said the bill’s sponsor, Brandon-Souris Conservative MP Merv Tweed. “It basically expediates the voting process where each house leader gets up and on behalf of all party members, votes yea.”
While there had been concerns last week that the bill may have to wait until 2013 for the Senate to complete its debates on the bill and receive royal assent, it now appears the bill could become law by the end of this year.
“Because not a lot of legislation has advanced to the Senate yet, I’m hoping they will deal with it in a short and timely fashion,” Tweed said, adding that Conservative Sen. Don Plett (Manitoba) will sponsor the bill in the upper house. “It’s very positive. It’s been out there for so long and now that it’s looking like we are near the finish line, it’s very positive.”
The bill is intended to improve the access rural Canadians have to library materials through the inter-library loan system.
Libraries exchange materials through the mail system, but the costs charged made it more difficult to transport the requested materials from one community to another.
» kborkowsky@brandonsun.com
Republished from the Brandon Sun print edition October 5, 2012
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