Roundup: Senate theatre a distraction

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In the event that you haven’t been paying attention to the Senate this past week, some Conservative senators took it upon themselves to amend the government’s legislation regarding their much-vaunted “middle-class tax cut,” and changes the various tax brackets therein to deliver bigger savings to some, less to others, and supposedly closes the $1.7 billion gap that kept the Liberal bill from being “revenue neutral.” It’s an unusual move, and one that may be beyond the Senate’s powers given that the Senate is not allowed to initiate money bills, and this might qualify as treading up on that restriction, though they claim an early twentieth-century precedent that would allow it. While this is interesting in and of itself, what it demonstrates is the way in which the Conservatives are using this manoeuvre to try and take one last partisan kick at the can to try and “prove” the worth of organised opposition in the Upper Chamber as “government representative” Senator Peter Harder is manoeuvring to try and eliminate the official opposition designation in order to do away with parties in their entirely in the Upper Chamber.

While John Ivison rightly calls this a bit of convoluted political theatre, what the calculation the Conservatives in the Senate are likely going for is for those amendments to be defeated in the Senate as a whole (as all amendments get reported back from the committee in the form of a report that the full Senate then votes to either adopt or not in the aptly-named Report Stage vote) with the strength of the new independent senators. At this point, they can go “Aha! See! I told you these new ‘independent’ senators were all just Liberal stooges!” and pat themselves on the back for being oh, so clever. Unfortunately, while there is a lot of merit in the pushback against Harder and company’s attempts to eliminate the role of parties in the Senate as part of modernisation, the Conservatives insist on shooting themselves in the foot and undermining their own efforts by trying to prove that the new independent appointments are all closet Liberals. Instead, they should work with the Senate Liberals to expose Harder’s ambitions and efforts to build a personal power base out of the independents, and maybe they’d catch the attention of the rest of my journalist colleagues, who dismiss this as partisan antics and turf protection while they continue to dwell on the non-issue of committee assignments (that can’t be reconstituted until a prorogation happens anyway). This petty theatre is distracting from the actual issues and dangers of undermining the role of the Senate, and proves that the Conservatives haven’t learned enough lessons from the last election.

Meanwhile, the trans rights bill is headed to the Senate, and all eyes are turning to see what kinds of shenanigans that Conservative Senator Don Plett will get up to in order to slow or hamper the bill’s progress. Of course, because it’s now a government bill and not a private members’ bill, his avenues for obstruction are much diminished, and the political climate has changed meaning that he won’t likely find too many allies to back him up, and Harder will have tools to shut down any obstructing tactics if they carry on too long, so I doubt it will be much of an issue, but it’s another last kick at a can that won’t get too much more traction.

Good reads:

  • Justin Trudeau has completed his visit to Liberia and has headed to Madagascar for the Francophonie summit.
  • Apparently, a decision was reached on the Northern Gateway and Line 3 pipelines – but cabinet won’t say anything until next week sometime.
  • While in Toronto to announce new clean fuel standards, Catherine McKenna said that she would be leading a clean energy trade mission to China next month.
  • The head of the RCAF says the current planes can fly until 2025, while Harjit Sajjan says that 65 planes isn’t going to be enough, and he’s looking at armed drones.
  • The US Lumber Coalition is looking to ignite a new trade war over softwood lumber.
  • Rumblings from south of the border make it sound like Buy American provisions will be making a comeback in the Trumpocalypse.
  • Robert Hiltz looks at how Kellie Leitch has been playing the media to boost her campaign.
  • Susan Delacourt writes about the need to pay attention to voices like those who voted Trump to send a message rather than because they were racist or xenophobic.
  • Paul Wells writes about the crisis in confidence in globalism, and how that could affect Trudeau especially as his attempts to bring investment is met with suspicion.

Odds and ends:

Here’s a look at ways in which supply management distorts the dairy market for Canadians.

Laura Stone sits down with Correctional Investigator Howard Sapers as he prepares to leave the job.