The Senate sat for the first actual sitting of the new parliament yesterday, and already the new era is being felt as they had to do away with Senate Question Period as there was no one there to answer questions on behalf of the government. You may not think this is an issue, but it does blow a hole in the accountability role of the Senate. Conservative Senate leader Claude Carignan moved a motion that would invite ministers to appear before the Senate to answer questions instead, and couched it in the language of urgency for regions like Atlantic Canada, who have no Conservative representation in the Commons, and they would have questions to ask that need answers. Of course, that would require going into Committee of the Whole and calling those ministers to the bar, rather than being able to do it as a regular Senate QP, which presents logistical challenges, but we’ll see what the government has to say in response. Meanwhile, former Senate Speaker Leo Housakos is moving a point of privilege that the government’s refusal to appoint a Government Leader is interfering in the operations of the Senate, which infringes on their privileges as a result. I don’t think he’s completely wrong there, particularly that the government is forcing changes to the way the Senate operates by circumventing things like Senate QP from functioning properly without anything in the way of consultation. It remains to be seen if the new Speaker will deem it a prima facia breach and put it to the Senate rules committee to determine if the breach is real, but this could be setting up a conflict between the two chambers, which could have been avoided if Trudeau had been a bit more thoughtful in the way he’s handled the whole situation. (As for other Senators complaining that “partisan” is being treated like a dirty word, and that the future “non-partisan” appointments will all be Liberals, and claiming that having senators in national caucus makes them more accountable, well, I think they need to take a breath and get a grip, because there are better ways to argue their points than the way they’re going about it).

Good reads:

• Justin Trudeau met with the special assembly of the Assembly of First Nations, and pledged a complete renewal of the relationship.
• The government announced the first phase of the inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women, which largely involves listening to the families.
• Mike Duffy took the stand in his defence for the first time yesterday, full of recollections of his career. (Reevely, O’Malley and Blatchford here).
• It was a challenging year for the Information Commissioner as the backlog of files in her office grows while she doesn’t have sufficient funding.
• The Liberals are calling the patronage appointment binge just before the election an “abuse of process,” particularly for the future appointments.
• The military’s new Sexual Misconduct Response Centre has already resulted in five criminal investigations.
• New Liberal MP Anthony Housefather writes about his experiences in his first week on the job.
• Aaron Wherry considers the issue of adopting Prime Minister’s Questions Period.

Odds and ends:

In case you missed it, e-petitions are now live for the House of Commons. Because slactivism!

It looks like we’ll be borrowing oil replenishment tankers from Spain for our Atlantic navy.