Amidst all of the activity yesterday, one of the things we did learn was that the new Prime Minister has yet to decide what he plans to do with regards to the Senate. It did not go unnoticed on Wednesday that there was no Leader of the Government in the Senate named to cabinet, but as we found out, it’s because he simply hasn’t decided what he’s doing yet, and that’s the same with regards to the Speaker. It raises all kinds of questions about how things are going to be managed with regards to the Senate, and Government House Leader Dominic Leblanc has been named the person to be the liaison between the two chambers, as is fair. What concerns me, however, is that in all of the talk of making the Senate more independent, what isn’t being considered is how it will do its job in holding the government to account if there is nobody in the chamber for them to do so (not to mention that it really is a problem if there is no member of cabinet in the chamber to shepherd government bills through either, which the Conservatives have been fudging for the past year or so). Some senators have been musing about cancelling Senate Question Period altogether, or having it simply focus on asking questions of committee chairs, but that seems particularly short-sighted, considering that they tended to ask far better quality questions of the government as compared to the Commons. Yes, the last couple of government leaders were not exactly great at responding to questions, but neither were ministers down in the Commons, and that era is hopefully over. The loss of the accountability function would be a huge blow to our parliament as a whole, and I hope that the Liberal government is considering this problem. Meanwhile, John Pepall urges caution with appointing too many good-hearted experts to the Senate, as it may empower them to challenge the democratically elected government too often as is starting to happen over in the UK, with the Lords starting to push back against their own limits. Food for thought in that there are consequences even for well-intentioned acts.
Tag Archives: Harjit Singh Sajjan
Roundup: A really new cabinet
So, that’s the new cabinet. For all of the concern trolling over “merit” when it comes to women being appointed in such numbers, Trudeau and the Liberals found an impressively credentialed group of Canadians that will do the country well. There is no one on that list that one could reasonably say got there for the sake of tokenism, which is not something you could argue with the previous government, where there was a lot of dead weight that was simply there to tick some boxes (and quite obviously so). The full list is here, and the Maclean’s annotated group photo is here. While they all did some quick media scrums after their first cabinet meeting, there weren’t a lot of answers yet because they haven’t had a chance to get their departmental briefings. Within a week or two, hopefully we’ll start getting some scrums with some answers (another huge change from the previous government). There may be some entrails to be sorted through in terms of those who didn’t make cabinet, but given that cabinet making is a delicate art, and there are many factors to consider, I would hope that nobody reads too much into the so-called “snubs,” particularly given that the commitment to parliament mattering more should prove that there are plenty of great roles for each of those “stars” that didn’t get a seat at the cabinet table. Maclean’s even went so far as to build a whole second cabinet out of those who didn’t make it this time. As for reaction, Susan Delacourt looks at what messages the picks send, while Andrew Coyne notes that despite the pledge for gender parity, that was not demonstrated in the make-up of cabinet committees.
If there`s a clunker in today`s cabinet announcement, it`s the cringe-worthy titles given to some of the cabinet committees.
— Stephen Gordon (@stephenfgordon) November 5, 2015
Of note: There is no Leader of the Government in the Senate in cabinet. This will start making things very interesting going forward. #SenCA
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) November 4, 2015
First day back will be December 3rd for Speaker election, Speech from the Throne December 4th. #cdnpoli
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) November 4, 2015