Roundup: The new Senate hurdles

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Just how MPs should deal with an increasingly independent – and assertive – Senate is the question posed by former MP Bryon Wilfert and his firm partner Paul Hillier, and it’s a question that I’m really not sure that Justin Trudeau adequate considered when he embarked on this path to modernization. While they note that no longer having senators in caucus limits the closed-door opportunity to hear and debate government proposals, I will state that they overplay the concern about the ability to whip those votes. There has never been any formal power to whip senators’ votes, but they relied primarily on sentimentality or affiliation, and sometimes senators went along, and sometimes they very much didn’t. That’s one of the reasons why there remains a bit of a taint around the post-2008 Harper appointees, because most of them came in being told that they could be whipped, and they behaved as though they could – up until fracture points around the contentious bill C-377, and then they rebelled against their Senate leadership (and it’s not a coincidence that Marjory LeBreton resigned as Government Leader shortly thereafter). They also point to the very real problem that with so many new MPs, and with the Liberal senators no longer in caucus, the personal relationships between parliamentarians that would normally exist no longer do, and that does start to exacerbate the problem of driving legislation through the Senate.

Where I see their proposed solution as being problematic is the suggestion that committee chairs be the new agents to set the legislative pace and of trying to build consensus. Why I think this is a problem is that the point of committees is to hold the government to account, which is why ministers are so frequently called to appear before them. If the chair is acting as the agent of the government, rather than of the committee itself, it creates something of a conflict in their roles. As well, many of the committee chairs are from the Conservatives (not that the Senate Liberals are the same party as the government, but there is an assumption of greater sympathy despite the fact that the relationship has been pretty testy to date). Trying to co-opt those chairs into being government agents to drive consensus would seem to be antithetical to the purposes of having an opposition, and its accountability functions. It also puts those chairs in the awkward position of having stakeholder groups trying to court them in order to get their support in rounding up senators to support the bills – groups that would also want to come before committee to plead their cases when the bills get to said committees, which again presents a bit of a conflict. If anything, I do think this highlights the value of having caucuses for organisational purposes, and arranging these meetings – and yes, the Independent Senators Group could possibly host these same kinds of stakeholder discussions without trying to come to an internal consensus, allowing their members to make their own minds up (and to date, they have operated on a rule that anyone trying to get support does so outside of their meeting room). It will continue to take getting used to, but it will continue to take some serious thought about what roles we’re asking people to take on within the chamber in order to get bills passed.

Good reads:

  • From the royal tour, the royal family had a children’s party with local military families before taking the rest of the day off (as often happens mid-tour).
  • Here’s a look at how protocol was largely non-existent in part of their Yukon tour (but the Canadian Monarchy doesn’t follow court manners, so it’s not a big deal).
  • Jane Philpott says a health transfer 3% escalator is enough and exceeds spending growth in most provinces anyway. Quebec especially disagrees.
  • Here’s a look at the uphill battle the government faces over pipelines.
  • Here’s a profile of Bill Blair, former top cop who’s now the MP in charge of marijuana legalisation.
  • Inuit youth say they didn’t have the same opportunities to apply to the PM’s youth council because of the bandwidth issues in the North.
  • A former NDP staffer who alleges harassment in her office is trying to get the NDP collective agreement overturned so that she can sue.
  • Erin O’Toole is officially “considering leadership” after resigning his critic portfolio.
  • Kellie Leitch and her campaign manager defend their attacks on other leadership candidates, like Andrew Scheer.
  • Deepak Obhrai produced a video to talk about why screening for anti-Canadian values is actually anti-Canadian, and about radicalization.
  • Guy Giorno is lashing out at Brad Trost again over Trost’s expense hypocrisy.
  • Terry Glavin fact-checks the concerns about Maryam Monsef’s birthplace drama.
  • Robert Hiltz disputes that Chris Alexander is the antidote the Conservatives need for their “uninspiring” leadership contest.

Odds and ends:

The late Senator Zimmer still faces a repayment bill to the Senate for his expenses deemed inappropriate.