Over the long weekend, Independent Senator Tony Dean posted an op-ed over on iPolitics to decry the supposed partisan attempts to block reform in the Senate – but it’s a dog’s breakfast that betrays a complete lack of understanding about the institution. It’s indicative of the attitude of a cohort of the new senators who think that they know best, despite not having a working knowledge of Parliament as a whole, or the Senate in particular, and yet they feel as though they know definitively how it needs to change. And more dangerously, Dean brings up that recent poll to show how Canadians apparently love the “new” Senate as a means of bashing Andrew Scheer and the Conservatives, who have no intention to continue the new appointment process – in effect campaigning for the Liberals, which should be uncomfortable for “independent” senators.

The core of Dean’s argument is that the Senate needs a business committee in order to get things done – which is both wrong, and wrong-headed. He complains that individual senators can delay bills, which he fails to grasp is the whole point. The Senate does not exist to rubber-stamp government bills, and yet Dean seems to miss that point. It’s not just that the Conservatives are partisan and therefore Bad – it’s because the Senate has a constitutional role to fill, and a business committee won’t stop delays. All it does is institute time allocation on all legislation before the Chamber – and it’s ironic that he’s pushing for that notion because in the very same piece he complains that the Conservatives were draconian about time allocation when they were in charge. He complains that there is no “TV Guide” for the Senate because debates aren’t organised, which is another wrong notion because the whole point about the way in which the Chamber has operated, where there are days between speeches between proponents and critics on bills is because it allows for thoughtful responses rather than the canned speechifying that happens in the House of Commons. And “organising” debates for the sake of TV is just time allocation in disguise. Which he fails to grasp.

Pointing to the programming motions on the assisted dying or cannabis legislation are not necessarily good examples of programmed debate in the Senate, because those were extraordinary bills, which the majority of Senate business is not. Dean was also known for insisting that the Conservatives would refuse to let those bills go to a vote when the Conservatives were proposing timetables for negotiation (and we all know that neither the Leader of the Government in the Senate, Peter Harder, nor the Independent Senators Group, seem to believe in negotiation or horse-trading to get things done in the Senate, because they mistakenly believe it to be “partisan,” which it’s not – it’s how stuff gets done). A business committee is a bad move for the Senate, and Dean needs to get a clue about that. It won’t stop the Conservatives from being partisan, and simply time allocating all business could set a bad precedent for when the Conservatives get back into power – which they will one day – and the impulse to return to some of the “draconian” measures of the Harper era come back, and suddenly they may feel differently about time allocating everything. But this cohort of new senators doesn’t get that because they’re not familiar with how parliament works, and they need to get on that because change for the sake of change may sound like a good idea in the moment, but can have lasting, damaging consequences for the institution as a whole.

Good reads:

• Proposed government changes to pension protection legislation doesn’t create a super-priority out of fear of unintended consequences, which has advocates railing.
• The government has approved a second type of oral fluid testing for cannabis use.
• Omar Khadr was on Tout le monde en parleover the weekend, and these are the highlights of what he had to say.
• In his forthcoming memoir, Jagmeet Singh writes that he was sexually as well as racially abused as a youth.
• Elizabeth May got married on Monday, which coincided with Earth Day.
• It’s Election Day in PEI, except for the riding where the Green Candidate died in a canoe accident last week – a by-election will be held in that riding later.
• Here’s a look at Jason Kenney’s economic plans now that he’s won the election.
• Kevin Carmichael notes that Jason Kenney spent the election fighting to preserve the status quo, while the province’s entrepreneurs and tech sector suffers.
• Heather Scoffield, likewise, points out how both climate change and automation are changing Alberta’s energy sector.
• Susan Delacourt muses that Elizabeth May’s actual honeymoon may portend a political honeymoon as there seems to be an increasing appetite for Green votes.
• Colby Cosh looks at the death of Social Credit as a political party, though some of its ideas are being recycled in new ways.
• My weekend column looked at the ongoing problem of Senator Lynn Beyak ignoring the Ethics Officer’s report, and what the Senate can do about it.

Odds and ends:

In light of the Notre Dame fire in Paris, assurances are being made that there are precautions being taken during the Centre Block renovations.

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