“There are constitutional conventions and there are ways things are done. You can just do it, which could land you in court, or you can build momentum which is from the ground up; getting the different provinces to go. He is an incrementalist. That’s been one of the hallmarks of his government,” said a former senior Conservative who did not want to be named. “He doesn’t want to wake the constitutional leviathan.… They’ve been talking about the same thing for half a century now, so it’s easy for those in the media to dust off all those arguments and then there’s suddenly 500 people with opinions and there’s the Prime Minister. Those aren’t good odds for getting a good story out there. … Why fight that battle? There’s rhetoric and there’s achievement. If Stephen Harper has a choice, he’ll choose the latter every time.”
The government has introduced seven bills on Senate reform since 2006. While other “priority” bills have quickly made their way through the House under the majority-governing Conservatives, including the controversial Bill C-19, an act to abolish the long-gun registry, which was introduced months after Bill C-7, but received royal assent on April 5, 2012—Bill C-7 continues to languish at second reading in the House of Commons.
The Conservative source said that if the government uses time allocation and closure on Bill C-7 as it has done on several bills in the past in order to get it through Parliament, the issue of Senate reform will inevitably be challenged in court by the provinces that stand to lose, such as Quebec or the Maritime provinces. If it gets to that point, the issue will be lost, the source said. Instead, Mr. Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.), who said he would not appoint any Senators unless they were democratically elected when he first became Prime Minister, is slowly appointing Senators and making the case for a reformed Chamber.
For example, the source said, many provinces have expressed their support for an elected Senate and have indicated they would be bringing in legislation to facilitate the move. If they do that, and by the time Mr. Harper leaves office and has several other elected Senators in the Upper Chamber, it will have become the norm, which paves the way for other Prime Ministers to continue the convention.
That’s how Mr. Harper won the 2008 coalition debate, the Conservative source. When the Liberals and NDP, assisted by the Bloc Québécois, threatened to form a coalition and take down the newly-elected Conservative government in 2008, Mr. Harper said that Canadians did not elect a coalition government, but rather elected the Conservatives to govern. Canadians did not challenge him on the assumption because they expect that their government would be elected, instead of what the Canadian Constitution says, which is that Canadians elect representatives and a government is formed from a party that can hold the confidence of the House of Commons. The source said Prime Minister Harper is hoping he can use the same kind of rhetoric on Senate reform.
“Well he’s got 62 seats in there. Time and attrition win the battle,” the Conservative source said, noting that the government will still try to make progress on Bill C-7, but will not fast-track it in any way. “It’s all part of it. He wants to get things done; rather than what a lot of people do when they run up against a wall, they stop moving. Well, he fights on more than one battlefront at once. If he gets stopped on battlefield ‘A’ he’ll just keep advancing on the other three. The idea is to get the thing done.”
Bill C-7 proposes both a framework under which provinces could pass their own legislation to hold Senatorial elections, as well as a nine-year, non-renewable term limit for Senators, which would be retroactively imposed on any Senator appointed after Oct. 14, 2008. Senators appointed before Oct. 14, 2008, would continue to serve in the Senate under current rules, which only require them to retire at the age of 75. The Senate Reform Act was introduced by Minister of State for Democratic Reform Tim Uppal (Edmonton-Sherwood Park, Alta.) on June 21, 2011, but has since been languishing at second reading.
The Conservatives argue that they are able to unilaterally reform the Senate under Sec. 44 of the Constitution, while others, backed up by a 1980 Supreme Court of Canada decision, have argued under Sec. 42 of the Constitution, that the government must seek the support of seven provinces representing at least 50 per cent of the country’s population.
PMO press secretary Julie Vaux said in an email to The Hill Times that the government’s priority continues to be the economy. “Our focus is on jobs, growth and long-term prosperity for all Canadians, we are taking reasonable and achievable steps with the Senate Reform Act,” she wrote.
Liberal House Leader Marc Garneau (Westmount-Ville-Marie, Que.) said if the government is hoping a delay will allow time for an elected Senate to be seen as the norm by the public, it won’t work because it’s a “bad bill” and said unless changes are made the government will face the same criticisms, and, “they’re not very good in this government at saying we need to change the bill.”
Quebec has already vowed to raise a constitutional challenge of the proposed reforms in court should the bill be passed by Parliament. And Nova Scotia’s NDP government has similarly said any reforms need to be done through a proper constitutional amendment subjected to the 7/50 provincial test. Ontario Liberal premier Dalton McGuinty has voiced his preference for the Senate to be abolished, rather than reformed.
NDP MP Joe Comartin (Windsor-Tecumseh, Ont.), his party’s democratic and Parliamentary reform critic, said after more than a year with little progress, he’s “wondering whether in fact they’re going to just let it die” and said “very real” concern over whether Bill C-7 could survive a constitutional challenge is the principal reason behind the Conservatives’ delay.
Conservative pundit Tim Powers, vice-president of Summa Strategies, said while he can’t speak directly to the Conservative source’s theory on why the government has not passed the bill when they have stated it as a top priority for the last six years, it’s a likely one.
“I think the Prime Minister, having been rebuffed, at least when the Liberals dominated the Senate, on Senate reform, wants to make sure, as he does with other pieces of legislation, that he gets all of his ducks in a row before he brings it forward and that it can be a legislative package that will be accepted and implemented, so some of that thinking may be right,” he said.
In an interview with The Hill Times, Minister of State for Democratic Reform Mr. Uppal said Bill C-7 has already been discussed seven times in the House of Commons, for “almost 20 hours of debate,” and said “if we had cooperation from the opposition, we could move this bill forward and move it to committee.” Bill C-7 was last debated in the House on Feb. 27, 2012.
When asked if Senate reform would be a priority this fall, Government House Leader Peter Van Loan (York-Simcoe, Ont.) told The Hill Times last week: “I think it’s unfortunate that in the previous opportunities to debate it and pass it, there was opposition from the Liberals, which we expected, but surprisingly by the NDP defending the status quo. We think it’s high time that Canada had a democratic Senate and that we have effective term limits and a method for allowing Canadians to have a say in selecting their Senators. Unfortunately so far both the NDP and the Liberals have been blocking those changes.”
The NDP favours abolishing the Senate over any reforms, while the Liberal Party has said reforms must be made with a proper constitutional amendment, that all provinces should be proportionately represented in an elected Senate and that a dispute-resolution mechanism is needed to mitigate the possibility of Parliamentary gridlock should the two elected Chambers disagree.
Some opposition MPs have also criticized the two-tier system of potentially elected and un-elected Senators.
“We hear the same arguments over and over again [from the opposition].…what’s really delayed the bill has been the fact that the opposition continue to put up more speakers in the House of Commons every time it comes up for debate,” said Mr. Uppal. “If we bring in time allocation on a bill then they complain.”
Mr. Uppal said it’s already possible for provinces to pass legislation to allow for Senate elections and said the Prime Minister “has been clear” that he will work with provinces that support Senate reform to bring in elected Senators but he also said Mr. Harper will have “no choice but to appoint Senators” if provinces don’t make that commitment.
Mr. Uppal said he wouldn’t “speculate” on whether Bill C-7 is on the fall agenda.
“We will continue to be focused on the economy, focused on jobs, growth and long-term prosperity, but I will say that if the bill does come forward I would hope that we would get cooperation from the opposition to move forward,” said Mr. Uppal.
NDP House Leader Nathan Cullen (Skeena-Bulkley Valley, B.C.) told The Hill Times last week that if the government were serious about Senate reform, Mr. Harper would not have appointed the five recent Senators. “I think Harper just gave his signal on Senate reform. He just threw five more people into the Senate. Canadians will tolerate a lot, and hypocrisy is the hardest to understand and accept. The hypocrisy from the Conservatives has been outrageous,” Mr. Cullen said.
On Sept. 7, Mr. Harper named Diane Bellemare, Tobias Enverga Jr., Thanh Hai Ngo, Thomas Johnson McInnis and Paul McIntyre, to the Senate, all effective immediately.
Since October 2008, all PMO press release announcing new Senate appointments have included at least a line stating the appointee has pledged support to the government’s efforts towards Senate reform.
The Conservative majority in the Senate has been further solidified by these most recent additions: there are now 62 Conservatives, 40 Liberals, two Independents and one Progressive Conservative in the 105-seat Senate.
Bringing about a Triple-‘E’ Senate in Canada—a Senate which is equal, elected, and effective—was a key tenant of the Reform Party of Canada, from which Mr. Harper hails, and Senate reform has long been a stated goal of the Conservative Party. However, the “Triple-E” idea has since been dropped from rhetoric and a number of Conservative Senators have come forward voicing opposition to the proposed reforms, while other Conservative Senators have publicly pressed for caucus to remain united.
Perhaps the most controversial statement of opposition to Bill C-7 has come from B.C. Conservative Senator Richard Neufeld, who was appointed in 2009 and at the time pledged commitment to the reforms.
“Since I have been here, I am not sure that an elected Senate is the way to go,” wrote Sen. Neufeld in a letter to colleagues that was released July 2010. “I am a firm believer that the appointment process is quick and cheap.”
On June 15, 2011, Alberta Conservative Sen. Brown, the second elected Senator to arrive in the Red Chamber, sent a letter to the Conservative Senate caucus stating that Mr. Uppal had been “showered with complaints” about the reforms at a recent meeting with the caucus.
“Every Senator in this caucus needs to decide where their loyalty should be and must be. The answer is simple; our loyalty is to the man who brought us here, the man who has wanted Senate reform since he entered politics, the Rt. Hon. Stephen Harper,” read the letter from Sen. Brown.
British Conservative Senator Gerry St. Germain said he supports the proposed Senate reforms but said he too is wondering why Bill C-7 has been languishing in the House: “It doesn’t make sense, we should be moving this file along because it’s something we promised we’d do.”
“I do know that there are a couple of people within our caucus who are not in favour of this, but that doesn’t change my view,” said Sen. St. Germain in an interview with The Hill Times.
When asked about how widespread opposition to the reforms are in the Conservative caucus, Mr. Uppal said last week, “We have very strong support for Senate reform within both our caucuses, in the Senate and in the House as well.”
The Conservative government has been introducing Senate reform bills since being elected in 2006, but this is the first version introduced under a majority government. In 2006, Bill C-43, “an Act to provide for consultations with electors on their preferences for appointments to the Senate,” was introduced in the House of Commons and Bill S-4, which sought to amend Senate tenure in the Constitution, was introduced in the Senate. Both bills died on the Order Paper, though S-4 managed to get as far as the committee stage.
In 2007, new versions were introduced: Bill C-20, which would allow for Senatorial elections; and Bill C-19, which would adjust Senator term limits. Following the failure of both of these bills, in 2009, Bill S-7 was introduced to amend Senate term limits, but it too met the same fate. In 2010, Bill C-10, an Act to amend Senate term limits; and Bill S-8, an Act respecting the selection of Senators, were introduced—both made it as far as second reading before dying on the order paper. Previous bills laying out term limits for Senators set an eight-year non-renewable term limit.
Original Article
Source: hill times
Author: BEA VONGDOUANGCHANH, LAURA RYCKEWAERT
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