Nova Scotia: Spring 2020 House Sitting.

• Author: Boucher, Annette
• Position: Legislative Reports

The Legislature's Spring 2020 sitting lasted 13 days from February 20 to March 10, 2020. Twenty bills received Royal Assent on March 10, 2020-17 Government Bills, 2 Private Member Bills and 1 Private and Local Bill.

The budget was delivered by the Minister of Finance on February 26 and, in accordance with the Rules and Forms of Procedure, five Estimates were considered in the Committee of the Whole on Supply, for a total of 40 hours. Concurrently the Subcommittee on Supply considered the remaining Estimates. The Rules and Forms of Procedure limit the total consideration time to 80 hours with no more than four hours per day per committee. The budget passed on the last sitting day, March 10, 2020.

When the House rose on March 10, 2020 the motion passed was the regular end of sitting motion providing for the House to meet again at the call of the Speaker. Since March 22, 2020, the Province of Nova Scotia has declared a state of emergency to help contain the spread of COVID-19 and the Legislature has not sat during the state of emergency. In accordance with the House of Assembly Act, each calendar year there must be at least one sitting of the House during the six-month period beginning the first day of January and one sitting of the House during the four-month period ending the 31st day of December.

Standings in the Legislature

A few days after the beginning of the Spring 2020 sitting, the Member for Chester-St. Margaret's resigned as a Liberal caucus member and sat as an Independent member. At that time, the standings in the Legislature were 26 Liberals, 17 Progressive Conservatives, four New Democrats, two Independents, and two vacant seats. On March 10, 2020, the last day of the spring sitting, two by-elections were held. Kendra Coombes was elected as the NDP member for the constituency of Cape Breton Centre and Dave Ritcey was elected as the PC member for the constituency of TruroBible...