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Maybe it's because I'm Canadian, but I think it's stupid not to read bills out loud at least once before they become law. In our House of Commons the procedure

Maybe it's because I'm Canadian, but I think it's stupid not to read bills out loud at least once before they become law. In our House of Commons the procedure is to read each bill, out loud, three times before it is passed. Then it gets sent to the Senate where it's also read three times (mind you the Senate typically rubber stamps everything). So every law in Canada has been read out loud a total of six times, and (assuming they're present) every member of the legislature has heard it three times.

jackpirate 14y ago
That's downright amazing. I can't imagine it would be physically possible to read aloud all US bills passed in a year that many times. My impression is that some bills are upwards of a thousand pages. I would be really interested in comparing the average length of Canadian legislation with American legislation.
- a-priori 14y ago
  I have no ideas about the average length, but I'd guess a normal length would about 10-15 pages. You can check out recent bills passed here if you're interested: http://openparliament.ca/bills/ http://openparliament.ca/bills/ (Hat tip to openparliament.ca, it's an awesome site) In fact, our current government got in trouble in the last few years for passing two very large omnibus bills, C-10 (the "Safe Streets and Communities Act", which makes many changes to the criminal code) and C-45 (the "Jobs and Growth Act", which makes many fiscal changes, among other things). http://openparliament.ca/bills/41-1/C-10/ http://openparliament.ca/bills/41-1/C-10/ http://openparliament.ca/bills/41-1/C-45/ http://openparliament.ca/bills/41-1/C-45/ They weigh in at 114 pages and 430 pages, respectively, in their normal two-column (English & French) layout. These are not typical and they caused a lot of commotion in the media and from the opposition when the government tabled them, mostly because of their lengths but also because of the limited amount of debate that was allowed about them.
peterwwillis 14y ago
It's rare that every member of the US legislature is present at all times. Just because someone hears something, does not mean they are listening. They could simply present the bill electronically before signing instead of reading it aloud. Reading out the whole bill each time is fairly pointless if only one provision is in question. But mostly this is stupid because it does not address the issue it purports to.

jackpirate 14y ago

That's downright amazing. I can't imagine it would be physically possible to read aloud all US bills passed in a year that many times. My impression is that some bills are upwards of a thousand pages. I would be really interested in comparing the average length of Canadian legislation with American legislation.

a-priori 14y ago
I have no ideas about the average length, but I'd guess a normal length would about 10-15 pages. You can check out recent bills passed here if you're interested: http://openparliament.ca/bills/ http://openparliament.ca/bills/ (Hat tip to openparliament.ca, it's an awesome site) In fact, our current government got in trouble in the last few years for passing two very large omnibus bills, C-10 (the "Safe Streets and Communities Act", which makes many changes to the criminal code) and C-45 (the "Jobs and Growth Act", which makes many fiscal changes, among other things). http://openparliament.ca/bills/41-1/C-10/ http://openparliament.ca/bills/41-1/C-10/ http://openparliament.ca/bills/41-1/C-45/ http://openparliament.ca/bills/41-1/C-45/ They weigh in at 114 pages and 430 pages, respectively, in their normal two-column (English & French) layout. These are not typical and they caused a lot of commotion in the media and from the opposition when the government tabled them, mostly because of their lengths but also because of the limited amount of debate that was allowed about them.

peterwwillis 14y ago

It's rare that every member of the US legislature is present at all times. Just because someone hears something, does not mean they are listening. They could simply present the bill electronically before signing instead of reading it aloud. Reading out the whole bill each time is fairly pointless if only one provision is in question. But mostly this is stupid because it does not address the issue it purports to.