Since the May 2011 federal election, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government has introduced more legislation in the Senate than any other prime minister has over the last 30 years, a Postmedia News analysis shows. Almost one in every four bills the government has introduced since May 2011 has first gone through the Senate, before going on to the House of Commons for approval.
Using the Senate to introduce bills isn’t uncommon, and is allowed in Canada’s parliamentary system. Government bills can originate in the Senate – except for legislation specifically about spending — but still must receive approval from the House of Commons before receiving royal assent.
But the increasing reliance on the Senate to take the first look at legislation may be because of ever-increasing partisanship in House of Commons committees, said Kathy Brock, an expert on federal politics from Queen’s University. She said it may be a way for the government to avoid detailed examination or having opposition parties hold up government business. The official Opposition, the NDP, has no Senate members, though the Liberals do.
“You’d really like the House of Commons committees to look at it, and look at it from the perspective of different parties,” Brock said. “You want the government to defend its bill and to look at it very critically and by going the other route (through the Senate), you can avoid that debate that can result in good changes to the legislation.”
The bills the government has introduced in the Senate since May 2011 touch on a range of issues, including three bills about aboriginal issues — S-2 dealt with matrimonial property rights on reserve, S-6 about terms of office for First Nations leaders, and S-8 regarding safe drinking water on reserves — and three about defence and security. There was also S-11, the Safe Foods for Canadians Act, which came out of the Senate amid the largest beef recall in Canadian history over E. coli contamination.
Four of the bills have not been passed by the Senate, although one is close. Four have received royal assent. That leaves eight bills in the House of Commons that have originated in the Senate, with six at second reading and two at third reading.
“When it turns to their advantage, it’s one more tool for (governments) to use to get their legislation through with less resistance,” Brock said, but “there is a value in having the partisan scrutiny first and then having the Senate look at it.”
Ironically, the Tories, who back Senate reform, may be giving the chamber more legitimacy than its detractors would like by introducing more bills in the red chamber. This takes away from the arguments for abolition, said Daniel Drache, a professor emeritus from York University’s political science school. But it may add to the arguments for Senate reform, he noted.
“It’s just part of the governance revolution of Harper to do things by stealth … because he has this larger goal to change the Senate and its relation to the House of Commons,” Drache said.
The expanding use of the Senate for bills has changed as the Tories have solidified their hold on the upper chamber. Since becoming prime minister in 2006, Harper has made 58 Senate appointments — he appointed Sen. Fabian Manning and Sen. Larry Smith twice each — giving the Conservatives a comfortable majority in the Senate.
All of the appointments have been Conservatives, meaning that government bills are less likely to be held up than if Harper had appointed independent or opposition senators, said Bruce Hicks, a researcher at Carleton University who specializes in government legislatures and institutions in Canada.
“Harper because he’s believed to be committed to an elected Senate … seems to have appointed people that are much more partisan, so maybe he trusts the body a lot more than other prime ministers in the past,” Hicks said.
The percentage of all government bills introduced in the Senate stands at 23 per cent over the past two years.
In sheer numbers, Harper in this session of Parliament has also eclipsed Pierre Trudeau’s mark of 15 bills introduced in the Senate between 1980 and 1983. Chretien introduced 14 bills in the Senate between 2004 and 2005 2001 and 2002. Harper has introduced 16 bills in the Senate in this session of Parliament.
For Chretien and Trudeau, those high-mark years coincided with their final years in office.
Chretien introduced 38 during his time as prime minister between 1993 and 2005. Brian Mulroney introduced eight bills in the Senate between 1984 and 1993. Since February 2006, Harper has introduced 47 bills in the Senate, which has only two parties and is sometimes seen as being less partisan the House of Commons.
The Postmedia News analysis doesn’t include procedural, or pro forma, bills. One such bill is introduced in the Senate and Commons every session, which allows each chamber to deal with legislation before the speech from the throne.
Original Article
Source: canada.com
Author: Jordan Press & Kirsten Smith
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