In light of Independent Senators Group “Facilitator” Yuen Pau Woo’s comments in the Globe and Mail last week about wanting to make Senate modernisation an election issue, Konrad Yakabuski penned a column in the Globe’s pages to point out that for all of the appointment of Independent senators, the institution remains as political as ever. Which is true – it is inherently a political body, no matter what some of its more recent denizens may think of it (much like the Supreme Court of Canada is itself a political institution, though people don’t like to think of it as such). And there are a lot of problems with Woo’s attempt to turn this into an issue, or his belief that Independent senators are somehow apolitical, or that a “non-partisan” Senate is even desirable (hint: It’s not). But Yakabuski’s column falls apart in several areas because, once again, you have pundits who know nothing about the institution passing judgment on it.

The key lines from the column that betray its ignorance are not difficult to spot:

Mr. Trudeau has effectively transformed the Senate by appointing 45 senators in just three years in office, almost all of whom sit as independent members. But just how independent are they, really, when they consistently vote in line with the Liberal majority in the House of Commons? Frankly, there is no way of knowing, given that the workings of the “new” Senate are even more opaque than those of the old one, when almost all senators were clearly aligned with one of the major parties and sat in on party caucus meetings.

Yakabuski has fallen into the trap of not understanding how Senate votes work, and how they can be different from those in the Commons. And I will be fair in pointing out that Conservatives, particularly a number of them in the Senate, have been playing a bad-faith game of portraying the votes in this light. What people ignorant of the institution don’t realise is that because the Senate knows they’re unelected, and will defer to the House of Commons on most occasions, they will rarely vote against government legislation, but will instead focus their attention on their role around scrutiny and any kinds of amendments to bills they can make – and this is even more so in the current era, where you have a government that has stated that they are open to those amendments. They also know that if they did vote down a government bill, there would be tempting a constitutional crisis, which is why they will only do it in exceptional circumstances. Simply counting votes ignores this reality of the Senate’s workings (which is both lazy journalism and poor qualitative political science in a qualitative body, and what the Conservatives agitating against the ISG are counting on). This is also to add that Yakabuski is off-base in describing the workings of the Senate, “new” or status quo, as being “opaque.” It’s not, and you have to go out of your way to ignore the workings if you think it is.

I would also add that Yakabuski also closes his column with praise for the design of the American Senate, citing that “The separation of powers and checks and balances built into the U.S. system expose the vulnerabilities of our own.” Nope. I would rather a system based on confidence and Responsible Government than their “balanced constitution” at any point, and if he thinks their system works better, he hasn’t paid the slightest bit of attention.

Good reads:

• After a day of procedural wrangling, the Canada Post back-to-work legislation passed the House of Commons, with a handful of Liberal MPs dissenting.
• Karina Gould has admitted that it will be impossible to stop attempted foreign meddling in the next election (but wants her bill passed regardless).
• The Ontario court has ruled that court documents in the Mark Norman case can be released as a sealing order wasn’t requested.
• Those court documents reveal a perceived contradiction between ministers as to the effect of the leak of Cabinet confidences.
• A second investigation into a possible leak of shipbuilding information was called off after it was found the information was too widely distributed (possibly in error).
• Conservative MPs on the agriculture committee are upset the government gave funds for farmers’ mental health before their study on the topic was completed.
• The PMO is now saying that Raj Grewal resigned because of a gambling problem for which he had incurred serious debts, and the RCMP was making some inquiries.
• Jagmeet Singh says he’s committed to running in Burnaby despite the Brampton seat coming open.
• Doug Ford decided to reverse course and restore the French Language Services Commissioner…kind of, plus made a couple of staffing changes.
• Ford is also worried that anywhere between two and seven of his MPPs are disgruntled enough to think about crossing to the Liberals. Yikes.
• Rachel Notley doesn’t think the federal government is doing enough about the oil price differential (but I’m at a loss as to what more they can do).
• Ruh-roh! Conservatives are complaining to John Ivison about Andrew Scheer’s weak leadership, chaotic office and incoherent political strategy.
• Chantal Hébert and Andrew Coyne each try to tackle the thorny issue of government aid for the news industry.
• Colby Cosh takes on Trudeau’s visit to Calgary, and some of the strange scenes that unfolded for him.
• My weekend column notes how the government isn’t selling the public on why they need to still run deficits and in spending the windfalls from their economic growth.

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