Liberal senators in no rush to pass Harper's ethics package

[tuvor]

OTTAWA -- Liberal senators are promising to give Prime Minister Stephen Harper's vaunted ethics legislation a long, bumpy ride this fall, en route to a possible impasse that only an election could break.

The Senate's legal and constitutional affairs committee resumes hearings Tuesday on the Conservatives' sweeping Federal Accountability Act, a 250-page behemoth aimed at cleaning up government in the wake of the Liberal-era sponsorship scandal.

Harper, who has declared the act the top priority of his fledgling minority government, wants it through the upper house and enacted by Thanksgiving.

But Senator Joseph Day, the Liberals' lead critic on the act, predicts there's no way it will be passed quickly or in its current form.

"I'm fully expecting there will be a significant number of amendments," Day said in an interview.

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