Roundup: Going around the rules

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So there were shenanigans in the Senate yesterday, the result of a confluence of a number of factors. Some of them are longer term – the terrible manner in which Harper has made his appointments has left a large cadre of Conservative senators who feel beholden to him and his largely imaginary whip. There are exceptions to the rule, but there are a lot of Senators right now who still feel they need to follow the PM’s rule because he appointed them, and that’s simply not the case. It was just a sensibility encouraged by the Senate leadership on the Conservative side who had far too many newbie senators in place at once. Then there’s the problem of the bill itself. The PMO has ruled they want to see this go through – never mind that it would create a giant bureaucracy at CRA, and that it could have “staggering” compliance costs for mutual funds and other organisations beyond the unions it’s targeting. It’s also a constitutional overreach because labour relations are a provincial jurisdiction, but the government wants this through because they see unions as a big threat to them. It never should have been a private members’ bill, but that was how they introduced it, and got it past the worst of the scrutiny on the Commons side because of automatic time limits. The Senate recognised it as unconstitutional and a threat to labour relations in this country, and even a number of Conservative senators opposed it. Led by Hugh Segal, they voted to amend the bill to near uselessness and sent it back to the Commons – but then prorogation happened, and the amendments were undone when the bill reset (thanks to Senate rules). In the interim, Hugh Segal retired, and Marjory LeBreton stepped down as government leader, almost certainly because of the caucus revolt over the bill. The Conservative senators sat on the bill for months before the PMO decided it wanted them to try and pass the bill. The Liberals, as is their right, filibustered. And they have the provinces on their side – seven provinces representing more than 80 percent of the population are opposed to the bill, and the Senate has a regional representation role. Things came to a head yesterday when the Conservatives tried to break the filibuster by trying to time allocate the bill – something they can’t do under Senate rules, and when the Speaker said no, the Conservatives challenged the ruling – something they can actually do under Senate rules. Kady O’Malley explains some of it here, and I responded with a Twitter essay.

So the Conservatives used their majority to overrule the Speaker and override the rules this one time (not rewrite the rules, as some others are reporting). It sets a terrible precedent going forward that a government can abuse time allocation and treat PMBs as though they were government bills, which further erodes their usefulness in a parliamentary sense if this tacitly endorses their being one more backdoor vehicle for the government to push legislative items through. If the government is so keen on these measures, then they should introduce them as government bills. This use of PMBs as sheep’s clothing is one more sign of our eroding parliamentary democracy. There are a few things of note in the aftermath, as C-377 is due to be passed either Monday or Tuesday. First is that Speaker Housakos at least showed some spine, ruled the government motion out of order, and recorded his vote in opposition to their override motion (as Senate Speakers can do), thus proving that he’s not entirely in the pocket of the PMO. That’s heartening. Hugh Segal went on the record to chastise his former colleagues as saying that this move is one more step in showing their parliamentary irrelevance. If anything, it’s a hint at why electing senators wouldn’t be any better, since it would simply create 105 new backbenchers for party leaders to control via other means. There are no actual control levers that the PMO can use – these current Senators simply choose to be ciphers. They will get better with time, and some are, but right now, it’s hard not to be very disappointed in watching them have their strings pulled.

Good reads:

  • Lieutenant-General Christine Whitecross is not only the highest-ranking woman in the Canadian Forces, she’s now in charge of all military personnel.
  • Medical marijuana producers are still not allowed to create consumables, because Health Canada regulations haven’t kept up with the Supreme Court ruling.
  • The government panel on science and technology that has noted our declining status in the world won’t release their spring report until after the election.
  • Kady O’Malley looks at the demise of HarperPAC.
  • Laura Payton’s Travers Fellowship piece today looks at what’s happening with Canada’s aid to Haiti.
  • Susan Delacourt wonders if we see increasing political polarization with an increasing wealth gap. Err, except that gap is far less of an issue in Canada.

Odds and ends:

Has Marjory LeBreton ended her nakedly self-serving legacy-building media tour? Nope. Still going.

A group has launched a court challenge to prevent the Victims of Communism memorial from going in the current planned spot.

Dean Del Mastro got bail, pending an appeal hearing on his case.

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/614102931265163264