Roundup: Peter Harder is trying to bamboozle you

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Behold Senator Peter Harder, the “government representative” in the Senate. Faced with attacks from his (mostly) partisan detractors, he bravely mounted his steed, and galloped out to the webpages of Policy Options where he oh so bravely slew a straw man to defend his particular moves in modernising the Senate. And in case this wasn’t clear enough, let me spell it out for you – Peter Harder is trying to bamboozle you.

The particular straw man that Harder bravely faced was the notion that those who defend the Westminster model in the Senate are trying to keep it a mirror of the House of Lords. This, incidentally, is complete malarkey. Nobody has ever made this argument. The Senate of Canada has never borne any resemblance to the Lords (aside from the fact that each is an appointed upper body), and nobody has advanced an argument to make that claim. But Harder went on at length to prove how different the two chambers were (again, nobody claimed otherwise), and then went on to showcase all of the other upper chambers in Westminster countries and how different they were too. Look at how flexible the Westminster model is! Harder proclaims. And it’s all very “Father knows best,” as he schools everybody on parliamentary democracy. And then he starts his subtle subversion. Look at Nunavut, he suggests – they don’t have parties there! It’s a consensus legislature.

And this is the point where I want to punch someone in the throat. But I have that urge everyone someone brings up the Nunavut legislature.

The Nunavut legislature works (more or less) on a party-less consensus model because a) it has a mere 22 members; and b) it operates within the cultural context of its Inuit residents for whom consensus-making is a norm. The Nunavut legislature model is neither scalable nor portable, and anyone who tries to suggest otherwise requires a smack upside the head. The other part, which escapes Harder’s point, is that it still has an executive council and an ostensible opposition whose job it is to hold said Cabinet to account. And that’s the basis of the Westminster model that Harder quite carefully ignores in his defence of said model’s mutability. You see, the real basis of the Westminster model is that of Responsible Government, and the exercise thereof needs both a government and an opposition to hold it to account, and that can replace the government when they lose confidence. Oh, but wait – the Senate isn’t a confidence chamber, you might be saying. And that’s right. But they still have a part to play in the exercise of accountability, whether it’s asking questions of the government in their own QP (which is why the Leader of the Government is supposed to be a cabinet minister), and why they have an absolute veto, which is a necessary check on executive power.

Harder’s other suggestion – that perhaps instead of an official opposition, there instead be an “opposition representative” to mirror his role as “government representative,” is as much about undermining the ability of senators to organise opposition to the government agenda as it is about extending his own power base among the independents. 101 loose fish cannot be an effective opposition force just as much as they cannot be a consensus body (not that the Senate’s role is consensus). Harder’s attempt to delegitimise the role of partisanship in the Senate has nothing to do with trying to respect the chamber’s constitutional role (which he uses revisionist history to assert) and everything to do with his own ambitions, and he’s willing to slay as many straw men along the way as it takes to convince everyone that he’s on the right path. Don’t let him get away with it.

Good reads:

  • The government announced a plan for an open competition for new fighters within five years, with the possibility of an interim “acquisition” of Super Hornets.
  • More on the announcement from John Geddes and John Ivison, with comments on the ridiculousness of the timetable from Dave Perry.
  • With Trump vowing to pull out of TPP, the deal is essentially dead. Here’s a look at what next steps might be.
  • Conservatives in the Senate are trying to amend the government’s tax legislation to make it “revenue neutral,” but there’s no guarantee it’ll survive the whole Senate.
  • The government is cutting down on the allowable daily dose of medical marijuana for veterans from 10 grams to three, barring a doctor’s prescription for more.
  • Everybody was freaking out about this fundraiser that Trudeau attended with a Chinese billionaire, but I’m having a hard time finding any actual conflict of interest.
  • The Privacy Commissioner is warning that other security agencies could be illegally keeping private information like CSIS was thanks to unclear legislation.
  • The government is looking to use the Infrastructure Bank to build electrical grids between provinces, but probably not a cross-country one.
  • The Coast Guard is saving a bundle on fuel…because so many of their ships have broken down.
  • Trevor Tombe crunches the numbers to find that blocking pipelines is an extremely costly and inefficient way to reduce GHG emissions.
  • Susan Delacourt offers her take on the Trudeau reaction to the Trumpocalypse.
  • Paul Wells opines about the juggling act the Liberals are undertaking with their fundraisers.
  • My column this week looks at proposals for “honesty in politics” laws, and why they’re a non-starter.

Odds and ends:

BuzzFeed talks to MP Randy Boissonnault about his role as the PM’s GLBTQ2 special advisor.

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