News that the Senate has been suspended until the end of the month, and that they have only met fourteen times since March, is deeply irritating to me on numerous levels. My primary irritation is that the Senate has work it can do, but hasn’t been doing it both because they’ve been unable to get their committees up and running, and because there have been virtually no government bills that were not COVID-related or Estimates that have headed their way. On the committee front, it would seem that much of the drama that happened in the early part of the year in the Selection committee has largely resolved itself because the Progressive Senators Group has been revitalized and is now a viable caucus again, meaning that Senator Yuen Pau Woo’s attempt to exclude them from committee seats has been for naught, and they should be able to come to an agreement about equitable distribution of seats now that he’s not able to screw them over. As for government bills, this has largely been a question of timing – bills in process did not advance very far before the pandemic hit – but the government has a very full agenda and should introduce one or two of its bills in the Senate as they are capable of doing, in order to get the ball rolling on them. There is no excuse for them not to.

As for the lack of sitting days, this is largely the prerogative of the Leader of the Government in the Senate, and in the current pandemic state, I find that a kind of learned helplessness has been setting in, in both chambers. The Senate, disadvantaged on the part of resources, particularly when it comes to thinks like IT and video capacity, has taken a back-seat while the Commons has been gobbling up those resources to get its own operations going remotely, and yet the Senate could very well have come up with ways to meet in-person safely. The concerns about travel could be mitigated by just having senators stay put, but they have thus far refused to make allowances in their Internal Economy committee to let them do so that won’t cost them out-of-pocket if they don’t already have an apartment or condo in town. The current demands for “hybrid” sittings, in spite of the problems that have developed with them in the Commons, seems to be barrelling ahead in spite of the objections of the Conservatives, and despite the fact that simply creating a parliamentary bubble is the cheaper, easier, and better option.

The bitter irony in all of this is that for all of Justin Trudeau’s talk about a more “independent” Senate, the last eight months have turned the Chamber into one big rubber stamp, as process gets abused time and again in the name of emergency legislation because they refuse to create a parliamentary bubble. People should be angry about this, but most everyone is just shrugging and playing into the learned helplessness that has set it, making me all the more irritated by it all.

Good reads:

• Marco Mendicino announced that the government was relaxing some border restrictions to allow more family members and long-term partners into the country.
• The federal government is adding another $600 million to its Regional Relief and Recovery Fund for small businesses affected by lockdowns.
• The federal and Ontario governments are each putting up about $300 million apiece to help a Ford assembly plant convert to producing electric vehicles.
• The RCMP’s Civilian Review and Complaints Commission says the average time it takes for RCMP leadership to respond their findings has grown to 17 months.
• Much like the Canadian Army, the Royal Canadian Navy and Royal Canadian Air Force are also drafting orders to purge their ranks of far-right members.
• Here is a lengthy look at the history of the Marshall Decision and the Mi’kmaq fishing dispute that is currently boiling over in Nova Scotia.
• In her bid to head the Inter-Parliamentary Union, Senator Salma Ataullahjan claims that the government will only support her if MP David McGuinty backs out.
• The Green Party leadership results are this weekend, as the party’s organization is in meltdown over its executive director.
• Kevin Carmichael points out that the Canadian Infrastructure Bank needs to be seen as free from political interference if it’s going to attract investment.
• Colby Cosh delves into the recent report on RCMP abuse of strip searches, and explains the case law on the matter, which isn’t being respected two decades later.
• Matt Gurney is exasperated by the state of communication around testing and social circles by this government, and that they can’t get testing right.
• Robert Hiltz has an angry denunciation of the provincial leaders who have repeatedly failed us over the course of this worsening pandemic.
• My weekend column looks at the Canadian Senators’ Group’s protest on bills being rammed through the Senate, and the worrying calls for hybrid sittings there.

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