The particular bugaboos of electoral reform and the role of the Senate have been colliding increasingly in the past number of days, as there have been threats coming that certain Conservative senators have been threatening to use their majority to vote down any legislation on changes to the electoral system unless there’s a referendum first. And then this particular op-ed in the Citizen by a Université de Montréal law professor urging them to do just that makes me want to just take a moment to talk it all through. First, a few things to keep in mind – the senator who went to the media about this threat was Don Plett, who is, well, singular on some issues. He’s broken ranks before, and is willing to stick to his guns on others, but I wouldn’t ever quote him as the voice of the Conservatives in the Senate, even though he is now the caucus whip. The other thing to keep in mind is that the Senate of Canada, being probably the most powerful Upper Chamber in the democratic world, does indeed have the power of unlimited veto – there is no overriding it if the Senate decides that they want something to die. It’s a power that they very rarely use, particularly when it comes to government bills – it’s kind of like the nuclear deterrent for legislation. No, they’d rather make amendments and send it back, with few exceptions. The reason it’s treated with such caution is that they know they don’t have the democratic mandate to exercise these powers except in rare circumstances. In those rare circumstances, they will do it because it’s their job to have a check on a majority government, and be empowered to speak truth to power, which is why they are afforded the kind of institutional independence that they have. So with this in mind, I will hold up a big caution sign when it comes to encouraging them to overturn any theoretical bill on electoral reform. This all dredges up memories of the Free Trade Agreement, and when the Senate held up that bill from the Mulroney government until it could be put to the people, seeing as this deal was hugely contentious at the time, and it was believed that it was going to be selling out our sovereignty to the Americans. The election was fought on this issue, Mulroney won, and the bill passed, and lo and behold, the sky didn’t fall. But while there was merit in putting that question to the people, it was part of the chain of events that started to polarise the Senate, which prior to 1984, was said to have operated on a much less partisan basis. Tit-for-tat games ramped up the partisanship there, until things became so bad that Mulroney exercised the emergency powers of appealing to the Queen to appoint an additional eight senators in order to get the GST passed. The Senate is currently in a vulnerable spot, and while I wouldn’t ask them not to do their jobs because they are in a period of intense scrutiny and this would get blown completely out of proportion by an ignorant pundit class and MPs with agendas harmful to the independence of the Senate – but it would hurt them. That’s why this discussion needs to be approached extremely cautiously, and rash actions scrupulously avoided at all costs.

Good reads:

• The government has provided an updated guide on parliamentary secretaries, and the issue of “providing leadership to members of the committee” bugs me, even if they can’t vote there. (More from Kady here).
• Toronto NDP MPP Cheri DiNovo is expressing party frustration with Thomas Mulcair’s leadership.
• Bill Morneau launched pre-budget consultations yesterday with university students, and vowed high priority for Indigenous Canadians.
• The country’s top courts are threatening legal action if cabinet doesn’t back off from forcing them into Shared Services Canada (but which court would hear the case?)
• The Dean Del Mastro appeal wrapped, and the Crown is seeking a longer prison sentence – nine months to a year, not just a single month it is currently.
• The Canadian Forces worried that one of its female-centric recruitment ads seemed a little too lesbian.
• TransCanada is launching both a Chapter 11 NAFTA challenge and a US Federal Court lawsuit for the rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline.
• The now-former head of Senate human resources is fighting being dismissed without cause.
• The Citizen speaks with new Liberal MP Anita Vandenbeld.
• Susan Delacourt muses about the nature of consulting Canadians, and how that affects the referendum question on electoral reform.

Odds and ends:

Here’s an interesting move to try and get Statistics Canada to better capture transgender and non-gender-conforming Canadians in the census.

The pool house at 24 Sussex is also the subject of debate over needed renovations.