Article content

By Tobi Cohen

OTTAWA — The opposition has called it misguided, at least two provinces have vowed not to pay for it and the Canadian Bar Association has done its darndest to get the Conservatives to listen to reason.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Tories' omnibus crime bill passes in the House of Commons Back to video

Still, the controversial omnibus crime bill cleared the Commons Monday evening, just 45 sitting days after it was first tabled.

The Safe Streets and Communities Act — a hodgepodge of nine justice bills, most of which were defeated in previous Parliaments when the Conservatives were in minority status — easily passed thanks to the government’s new majority in a vote of 157 to 127.

[np-related]

“Parliament has seen and debated these measures, some of them for as long as four years,” Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said earlier in the day as he called on all MPs to unanimously support the measures — even though this clearly was no longer necessary, nor likely to happen.

“The time for talk is over. The time for action is now.”