Nova Scotia.

• Author: Boucher, Annette M.
• Position: Legislative Reports

Hearings before the Law Amendments Committee

Bill # 59, An Act Respecting Accessibility, was introduced during the Fall 2016 sitting of the House of Assembly. In contrast to other Bills before the Committee, Bill # 59 was not reported back to the House during the Fall sitting but remained on the agenda of the Law Amendments Committee when the House rose on November 10, 2016. This was unusual as bills introduced during a sitting are usually passed by the House during the same sitting.

Bill # 59 generated a great deal of interest and the extensive hearings resulted in major amendments being made to the Bill. Hearings were held by the Committee when the House was not sitting. This is also an unusual practice for our House of Assembly. For the first time our Legislative TV live-streamed the committee hearings and meetings on a YouTube channel and on the Legislature's website. We also had closed captioning and sign language interpreters present during all the hearings and deliberations. Some presentations were made via video feed from other parts of the province. Meetings were scheduled well in advance and this facilitated the participation of many persons. This was noteworthy as the committee has not traditionally given "advance" notice of hearings to the public nor broadcast the hearings to the public in the recent past.

This Bill caused the Committee to make its hearings and deliberations "accessible" to a larger audience and this change in process was viewed as a major step forward by many. It will be interesting to see whether the Committee will alter its processes for further hearings on bills referred to it for study.

Spring sitting of the House

On March 23, 2017, the Speaker issued a notice advising that the 3rd session of the 62nd General Assembly would resume at 1pm on April 25 and the Government advised that the budget speech would be delivered in the House of Assembly on April 27, 2017.

Bill # 59 was reported back to the House on the first sitting day and the House gave unanimous consent to the Bill being referred to the Committee of the Whole House on Bills the same day.

The House sat for four days: April 25, 26, 27 and 28. During that time two Government bills and 10 Private Member...