Prorogation will kill any bill that has yet to receive Royal Assent, including private member’s bills focused on sports betting advertising and Indigenous gaming rights.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s decision to step down and shutter Parliament will disrupt the progress of bills intended to rein in sports betting advertising and clarify the legal status of Indigenous gambling operations.
Trudeau announced Monday that he plans to resign as prime minister following a Liberal Party leadership race. The outgoing PM also said he advised the governor general that a new session of Parliament is needed.
“She has granted this request and the [House of Commons] will now be prorogued until March 24,” Trudeau said during a press conference in Ottawa.
With Trudeau resigning and Parliament proroguing until March 24, FanDuel has “Spring (March – May 2025)” as a -260 favourite for the next Canadian federal election: pic.twitter.com/RkgN0nNRnu
— Geoff Zochodne (@GeoffZochodne) January 6, 2025
Prorogation kills any bill that has yet to receive Royal Assent. That will include Ontario Sen. Marty Deacon’s S-269, legislation that would require the federal government to develop a national framework for advertising sports betting in Canada.
S-269 passed the appointed Canadian Senate in November, but it had yet to receive its first reading in the House of Commons because of an impasse in the latter, elected chamber. Trudeau cited that impasse in his decision to reset Parliament.
“[T]he fact is, despite best efforts to work through it, Parliament has been paralyzed for months after what has been the longest session of a minority Parliament in Canadian history,” the prime minister said on Monday.
A double whammy
So Trudeau’s decision – made in the face of gloomy polling numbers and calls from within his Liberal party for his resignation – will disrupt the effort to set federal standards for marketing sports betting in Canada.
It will also disrupt the slower progress of S-268, another private member’s bill that was likewise introduced in 2023. Among other things, S-268 would amend Canada’s Criminal Code to make it clear that the governing body of a First Nation can “conduct and manage” gambling operations on its reserve.
S-268’s tweaks would “parallel the authorization of provinces to conduct and manage gaming in their jurisdictions,” Sen. Brent Cotter said earlier this year.
“This would extend this gaming jurisdiction to any First Nation that wishes to take up the opportunity,” Cotter added.
Unfinished business
Alberta Sen. Scott Tannas proposed the legislation in the wake of Canada’s decriminalization of single-game sports betting in 2021. During that debate, concerns were raised about the law’s lack of an explicit nod toward the gaming rights of First Nations.
Perhaps the most concerned party was the Mohawk Council of Kahnawà:ke (MCK), a Quebec-based Indigenous government group with longstanding ties to the online gambling industry. The MCK fought for recognition in Ottawa in 2021 and then unsuccessfully fought Ontario in court over the province’s launch of a regulated market for online sports betting and internet casino gambling.
In May, representatives from the MCK traveled to Ottawa to discuss possible changes to Bill S-268, which only made it to a second reading in the Senate.
“We have always asserted our jurisdiction over gaming, and the Kahnawà:ke Gaming Law and Regulations are not dependent on the ratification or approval of any other jurisdiction or regulatory body,” said then-Ohén:ton Í:iente ne Ratitsénhaienhs Kahsennenhawe Sky-Deer in a press release. “Kahnawà:ke has blazed the trail on First Nations Gaming regulation, and we feel that we created the space for external governments to consider how this can work for other First Nations on a global scale.”
The MCK then announced that their partnership with Entain PLC-owned Avid International Ltd. for the Sports Interaction online gambling platform was over.
The MCK cited the “change in the regulatory landscape for gaming in Canada and economic reasons” in ending the partnership, which involved Entain running SIA inside Ontario and an MCK-owned company doing the same outside the province. Moreover, in announcing the breakup, the MCK pointed toward the single-game wagering legislation and Ontario’s regulatory scheme.
“The end of the partnership with Entain will certainly bring forth new opportunities, as the conclusion of the partnership also releases MCK from its obligations of exclusivity,” Ohén:ton Í:rate ne Ratitsénhaienhs Cody Diabo said in a press release. “MCK is now free to pursue other opportunities in online gaming, under a new brand.”
At any rate, federal clarity on or regulation of advertising and Indigenous gaming rights will have to wait until Parliament returns. Prorogation will interrupt those legislative conversations.
It will also be tough to get those efforts moving again when lawmakers return to Ottawa. While bills can be revived in a new session at the same stage they reached at the end of a previous session, no party has a majority in the House of Commons and an election later this year seems certain.
Gone but not forgotten
The lack of action will especially grate on ad critics, several of whom were heard from during the committee process for S-269 in the Senate. Those criticisms have grown louder in recent years because of advertising prompted by the federal decriminalization of single-game sports betting in 2021 (something Trudeau voted in favour of) and Ontario’s launch of a competitive market for online gambling in 2022.
Nevertheless, Ontario’s iGaming regulator has already taken steps to restrict certain forms of advertising. The gaming industry and professional sports leagues have also pushed back against the pushback in Parliament.
“Unreasonably curtailing responsible advertising will inevitably hamper the important effort to channelize illegal sports betting into the legal market,” warned Jonathan Nabavi, the NFL’s vice president of public policy and government affairs, in a letter to a Senate committee.
It’s likely advertising is revisited in future legislative sessions. Yet both private member’s bills, starting in the Senate and facing a gridlocked House of Commons, were always longshots.
The governing Liberals and the opposition Conservatives (who lead in the polls) were battling over documents tied to a since-shuttered “green fund,” which caused the legislative standstill. It seems unlikely Monday’s announcement will smooth things over when Parliament returns.
“We are committed to getting things done for Canadians in Parliament and we believe the Conservatives should stop playing obstructionist partisan games so that MPs can debate bills – including Bill S-269,” a spokesperson for Canadian Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge’s office told Covers in November.