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The Harper government’s budget was set to become law

The Harper government’s budget was set to become law, after the Senate approved a second omnibus implementation bill on the last day of the 2012 parliamentary session.

By a vote of 50-27, the Senate passed the government’s second budget implementation bill Friday morning. The bill was then sent to the Governor General to be signed in to law. A royal assent ceremony was to take place soon thereafter.

It was the last vote in a long few days in the Senate, which also passed a bill to combat elder abuse, a spending bill (C-50) and then unanimously approved Conservative MP Harold Albrecht’s private member’s bill to create a national suicide prevention framework.

But left out of the voting was another private member’s bill that would allow for single-event sports betting in Canada. The bill run into opposition from both Conservative and Liberal senators after major sports leagues came out against it, arguing that it could lead to players throwing games or shaving points.

Gaming industry officials say single-game betting is already taking place in Canada, but is an unregulated, underground industry. Approving the bill would allow for better scrutiny of how money is being bet on sports and catch anomalies, they say.

The bill passed through the Commons with little debate, garnering support from all parties in the House.

The budget bill, Bill C-45, includes changes to public sector pension plans, a new electronic travel authorization system, pay raises for judges and changes to environmental protection and reviews for lakes and rivers.

The Harper government has argued that the changes are needed to protect the economy.

The opposition tried to prevent or stall adoption of the bill in recent weeks, with MPs proposing 1,600 amendments, all of which were defeated by the Conservatives in marathon voting sessions last week.

The tactics mirrored a similar filibuster on the first budget implementation bill in June.

However, this time around, the NDP also led an unconventional charge to have the vote at third reading thrown out over a technicality.

Tempers flared briefly on the floor of the Commons after the request was made, when Government House Leader Peter Van Loan got into a heated exchange with NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair as the former was talking with his NDP counterpart Nathan Cullen. Defence Minister Peter MacKay and Cullen got between Van Loan and Mulcair.

There were no such stall tactics in the Senate, which split the bill up for study before the Commons had even passed it. A Liberal amendment in the Senate that would have seen hundreds of pages removed from the budget was voted down Thursday night.