Tag Archives: The Senate

Roundup: Winds of change in the Senate

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Interesting things are afoot in the Senate, with a number of new motions and bills introduced that could change the way it operates in the future, as well as debates on operations. It’s been pretty fascinating so far, and so far we’ve had:

  • Senator Housakos’ point of privilege on the lack of a Leader of the Government in the Senate;
  • Senator Carignan’s motion to call ministers to answer questions in the Chamber;
  • Senator Mercer tabling a bill that would amend the constitution to allow Senators to elect their own Speaker (and yes, this is the easiest amending formula);
  • Senator Wallace leading a debate on committee memberships and how they’re determined.

It’s all very interesting, and there has been some spectacular pushback on the facile notion by some senators that only partisan senators can be effective. There will have to be a great number of rule changes that will have to be debated by the Senate, and in particular the Rules, Procedures and Rights of Parliament committee, whenever it is formally struck (which should be very shortly). Some of those changes will have to be the determination of funding for the Senate Liberal caucus as they are not the government caucus, nor are they the opposition caucus (no matter that they currently sit on the government side, more out of convention than anything). Part of the discussions that were had in response to Senator Housakos’ point of privilege are that Question Period did not enter into the Senate until 1979 (ETA: This is disputed. Senate rules dating to 1969 include it, as does a 1916 edition of Bourinot. Thanks for the corrections), and that independent Senators have chaired committees in the past. These are all matters that will remain up for discussion, but the process of internal change in that Chamber is already upon them.

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QP: A few verbal warnings

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Normally Wednesdays, being caucus days, are the most well attended in the Commons, but considering that it’s the first week and everyone has been here the whole time, the attendance was not much changed. Rona Ambrose led off in French, lectern on desk, asking about the promise of electoral reform and whether the government would hold a referendum on it. Justin Trudeau noted that they have committed to engage in broad consultations with Canadians to have a more representative system. Ambrose retorted that when you change the rules of democracy, everyone gets a say, and noted that sixty percent of Canadians didn’t vote Liberals. Trudeau noted that her party did not consult with the Fair Elections Act, but he would. Ambrose again demanded a referendum he had a system in mind. Trudeau reminded her of the previous government’s disrespect for democracy. Denis Lebel gave another round in French asking for a referendum. Trudeau again didn’t promise to hold one, simply on holding consultations. Thomas Mulcair was up next, wondering why the government didn’t agree with their motion to cut the lowest tax rate instead. Trudeau said that their plan was what Canadians had asked them to do because it helps the middle class. Mulcair asked again, throwing in some Christmas allusion, got the same answer, then changed to French to ask about Canada Post home delivery. Trudeau reminded him of the moratorium on new community boxes, and noted the plan for more consultations. Mulcair changed topics again, asking about the tax credit on labour sponsored funds. Trudeau reminded him the mandate letters spelled out the priorities, which included that promise.

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Roundup: Imposition and breaches of privilege

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The Senate sat for the first actual sitting of the new parliament yesterday, and already the new era is being felt as they had to do away with Senate Question Period as there was no one there to answer questions on behalf of the government. You may not think this is an issue, but it does blow a hole in the accountability role of the Senate. Conservative Senate leader Claude Carignan moved a motion that would invite ministers to appear before the Senate to answer questions instead, and couched it in the language of urgency for regions like Atlantic Canada, who have no Conservative representation in the Commons, and they would have questions to ask that need answers. Of course, that would require going into Committee of the Whole and calling those ministers to the bar, rather than being able to do it as a regular Senate QP, which presents logistical challenges, but we’ll see what the government has to say in response. Meanwhile, former Senate Speaker Leo Housakos is moving a point of privilege that the government’s refusal to appoint a Government Leader is interfering in the operations of the Senate, which infringes on their privileges as a result. I don’t think he’s completely wrong there, particularly that the government is forcing changes to the way the Senate operates by circumventing things like Senate QP from functioning properly without anything in the way of consultation. It remains to be seen if the new Speaker will deem it a prima facia breach and put it to the Senate rules committee to determine if the breach is real, but this could be setting up a conflict between the two chambers, which could have been avoided if Trudeau had been a bit more thoughtful in the way he’s handled the whole situation. (As for other Senators complaining that “partisan” is being treated like a dirty word, and that the future “non-partisan” appointments will all be Liberals, and claiming that having senators in national caucus makes them more accountable, well, I think they need to take a breath and get a grip, because there are better ways to argue their points than the way they’re going about it).

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Roundup: Looking forward to the first QP

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It’s the first full sitting of the new parliament, which includes the first Question Period of the new session. Hooray! It’s going to be exciting, but there remains so much to be seen, so it’s hard to pre-judge the whole thing. Not to mention, the Liberals are keen to change the rules around QP by the New Year, so what happens this week may be a glimpse into a future that never will be. Will Speaker Regan enforce his heckle ban? Will MPs respect it? While Kady O’Malley offers a preview of what to expect, and the rest of the Ottawa Citizen staff gives their expectations for some of the match-ups, I’ll offer a few of my own observations. First of all, the first few QPs of any new parliament aren’t likely to be exciting because, frankly, everyone’s still a bit sanctimonious at this point. There’s all this hope and optimism, and of course they’re going to be civil and constructive because why wouldn’t they be? It’s also early enough that there really haven’t been too many screw-ups or missteps by the new government yet, so there’s not too much for the opposition to sink their teeth into just yet. We’ll see if Trudeau is going to show up, and how many questions he’ll answer, seeing as he plans to change the rules so that he’ll only be required to show up one day per week (but answer all questions on that day). As for some of these match-ups the Citizen staff came up with, well, it’s pretty obvious that they didn’t really watch QP in their last parliament because some of their descriptions and predicted “winners” are complete nonsense. Advantage Irene Mathyssen over Kent Hehr? Seriously? Mathyssen who reads her questions with sheets of legal-sized paper in front of her face is more impressive than Hehr, who has years of provincial experience? Sorry, no. Cullen as a “strong performer?” Seriously, did anyone actually listen to him ask questions in the last parliament? Because he didn’t so much ask questions as give soliloquies as to how terrible the government was with no actual question asked. Not sure how that makes him a “strong performer.”

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Roundup: An “efficient” Speech

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Yesterday’s Speech From the Throne was all of the pomp and pageantry we’ve come to expect from the opening of parliament, with a few new elements this year to reflect a few of the things Trudeau is trying to emphasise – an Indigenous drummer after the Governor General arrived, and a lengthy reception line with a number of local youths, immigrants, and Syrian refugees. The Speech itself was short and per Trudeau’s characterisation, “efficient,” which is just as well, though it led to the opposition leaders bellyaching that it didn’t mention the laundry list of things that they felt it should, including dollar figures and timelines for promises (as though any Throne Speech ever has done so). And hey, Thomas Mulcair started making snide comments in TV interviews, so the new tone of civility really lasted. Content wise, there were no surprises in the Speech, which isn’t a surprise considering that we just came out of a lengthy election, plus the ministerial mandate letters are already public, so it’s just as well that Trudeau didn’t insist on reiterating the whole platform in florid language that would have bored everyone present. (Maclean’s has an annotated copy of the Speech here). With the Speech over, the Commons proceeded to engage in some housekeeping – the pro forma Bill C-1 that asserts the independence of the Commons from the Crown, the nomination of Bruce Stanton as Deputy Speaker, bringing the Procedure and House Affairs committee into existence, and tabling of the Notice of the Ways and Means Motion that get the process of Trudeau’s middle class tax cuts rolling for January 1st. As for reaction to the Speech, Aaron Wherry, Andrew Coyne and Paul Wells all note the ambition of the agenda, while Chantal Hébert puts it all in a bit more historical context.

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Roundup: Some answers on the Senate question

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That Senate bat-signal? It came with air raid sirens today. To recap, the government named Senator George Furey as the new Senate Speaker, which was a positive step, then they handed down their plan for their new appointment process, and amidst this all, Conservative Senator Jacques Demers quit caucus to sit as an independent. So where to begin? Well, with Furey’s appointment, it lays to rest issues around whether the government would ignore their obligation to make the appointment, and to the questions of what to do with Housakos after the allegations of his breaching senators’ privilege with the AG leaks. Senator Elaine McCoy was disappointed that Senators couldn’t choose their own Speaker, but I’m not sure she’s aware that it would require a constitutional amendment for that to happen (but one with a minor amending formula, granted). And then there the appointment panel – it’s designed much like the Vice-Regal Appointments Commission, with three permanent federal members and two ad hoc members per province with a vacancy, and they will draw up a short list for each vacancy for the Prime Minister to choose from. It’s constitutional and creates the atmosphere for the Senate to change from within, based on the recommendations from Emmett Macfarlane. The plan is to draw up a temporary process to name five Senators quickly in the New Year (two each for Manitoba and Ontario plus one for Quebec, where the representation levels are getting low), and the permanent process will then take over and fill the remaining vacancies, plus new ones as they happen. The plan is also that the provincial will give input on the appointment of board members from their province (though the federal government will appoint them for the temporary process). Christie Clark said that she’s not interested in participating, which is fine – the government can appoint BC representatives for the committee without her government’s input, and the same with Brad Wall if he joins her obstinacy. It was also announced that one of those five first appointments will be named the government leader in the Senate, but that they won’t be in cabinet and will be more of an administrator or a legislative coordinator, thus impacting on the accountability aspect (which I will write about in a future piece). It does provide a bit more clarity, however, but much remains to be worked out. As for Demers, I have little sympathy for his whinging that he didn’t want to vote on certain bills when he was in caucus, but he did it out of loyalty “to the team,” and to Harper. He had a choice. He singled out Bill C-377, which four other of his colleagues either voted against or abstained on in the final vote when they found the intestinal fortitude to do so. He could have joined them but chose not to, and only now leaves once Harper is gone. He’s a grown-up and had choices all this time.

https://twitter.com/emmmacfarlane/status/672432061702017024

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Roundup: Welcome, parliamentary secretaries

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Justin Trudeau named his parliamentary secretaries yesterday – 35 of them, with three for his office alone, each representing particular portfolio issues. Those appointments aren’t at full gender parity, but then again, they’re not cabinet ministers either. The question now is what becomes of them – will they have useful and meaningful roles while still respecting the letter and spirit of Responsible Government in our system, or will they be used as human shields and ministerial proxies as they were in the last parliament? According to the Open and Accountable Government document that the PMO put out, the role of a parliamentary secretary is not to be a replacement cabinet minister, but to attend Question Period; help shepherd their minister’s legislation through the process in the Commons and in committee (but not voting in committee); supporting their minister’s position on Private Members’ Business; supporting their minister on committee issues and appearing before committees; and carrying out other House duties, such as leading government responses to Opposition Day motions and participating in the Late Show (aka Adjournment Proceedings). All of these are important, but let me make a couple of cautions. First of all, parliamentary secretaries should not – and I cannot emphasise this enough – sit on committees. This practice has been banned in the past, but when repealed, we saw what happened in the last parliament what became of it, which is that the committees were (in the words of Scott Brison) turned into “branch plants of ministers’ offices.” With their special PMO staffer behind them at committee meetings, it allowed the PMO to basically control the committee agendas, robbing them of any semblance of independence like they are supposed to have. This cannot be allowed to continue in the new parliament. We should also discontinue the practice of allowing parliamentary secretaries to field questions in QP. They are not members of the Ministry, and don’t have access Cabinet briefing materials, so they can’t answer. Under Responsible Government, the government is being held to account, so government needs to answer – not their proxies. Having them do so shields the minister from answering, and if the minister is not present, then they need to have a designated deputy in Cabinet to field those questions (and yes, there is a list of the deputies). Let’s keep the roles separate, and keep government accountable to parliament, the way it should be.

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Roundup: A troubling allegation

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There’s a rather disquieting story in the Huffington Post that quotes a couple of unnamed former Senate staffers, who point the finger at Senate Speaker Leo Housakos as the source of the leaks of the Auditor General’s report into senators’ expenses. And to be clear, in the past couple of weeks, I’ve heard similar tales being floated by someone else on the inside who witnessed it happen, and later witnessed Housakos deny it to other Senators. And indeed, Housakos was in the big chair when he found a prima facia breach of privilege when Senator Céline Hervieux-Payette raised the issue in the chamber, and with that finding, it went to the Senate’s rules committee to study the matter; that study was suspended when Parliament was dissolved, but it could be revived once the committee is reconstituted. That breach of privilege is a pretty big deal, and the fact that more than one person is now coming forward to say something is telling. This going public is also going to put pressure on Prime Minister Trudeau with regards to what he’s going to do with the question of appointing a new Senate Speaker. To be clear, this is a Prime Ministerial appointment because, unlike the Commons Speaker, the Senate Speaker is higher on the Order of Precedence as he or she fills a variety of additional diplomatic and protocol functions that the Commons Speaker does not, and is considered a representative of the Crown. If the current representative is not deemed to be trustworthy, and has indeed violated the privilege of Senators for his own ends, then it seems difficult to see how he can be trusted to stay in the post, and it may light a fire under Trudeau to do something about it, while the rest of the Senate remains in the dark about how they’re going to organise themselves as Trudeau drags his feet.

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Roundup: A dubiously predicted rejection

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There are days when the Senate bat-signal shines in the sky, and I’m likely to sigh and say “Oh, you again.” And it’s one of those times, wherein the Hill Times writes a screaming headline about Liberal senators saying they’ll oppose an appointed Government Leader, only for the story to be about one unnamed Senate Liberal source (not even necessarily a senator) saying that they might objet to an appointment, but no one really knows because it’s all up in the air. So, chalk another one up for hyperbole without any real basis for it. Now, it does seem like there are some issues that need to be sorted, such as whether they count as a Recognized Party for budget reasons when it comes to leadership, but that would seem to me to be an issue that they could solve internally as the Senate is self-governing. And for sure, the sense of uncertainty amongst Senate Liberals is likely getting frustrating because I’m sure they’d like to know if there will be things like Senate Question Period still carrying on without a member of the government to hold to account, or how they will shepherd government bills through the Chamber, or even how they will organise seating (as there really isn’t a government and opposition side any longer), but again, it’s all up in the air. One does hope that the Liberals on the Commons side will start getting more communicative about what’s going on, seeing as having a functioning Parliament would be a good thing to get sorted, but it seems that we have to remain patient a little longer. Hyperbolic headlines don’t help.

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Roundup: Changing the refugee timeline

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The Liberal government has released their official refugee resettlement plans, and surprising probably no one, they had to back away from the pledge of 25,000 by year’s end. The revised goal is 10,000 by year’s end, the 15,000 remaining by the end of February, and while that number will be both government-sponsored and privately sponsored, they pledge to have a least 25,000 government-sponsored refugees by the end of 2016. All security screening will happen on the ground in the refugee camps, while they will be offered mental health services once in Canada. There are spaces for 6,000 that would be prepared in a couple of different military bases, but those are intended only as a back-up, with the intention to have communities take them right away. So in all, more resettled refugees than the previous government would have done, but not quite as ambitious as they had initially hoped for. As for why the government changed their minds, Trudeau told Matt Galloway in an interview that it was because they wanted to “get it right,” at which point, we ask ourselves how we consider the accountability question. Do we blast them for breaking the campaign promise? Do we point out that it was possibly a reckless promise in the first place, as they were trying to one-up the other parties? Do we try to have a more grown-up conversation where we allow them the ability to change their minds with changing circumstances (and before you say it, no, I don’t think that the attacks in Paris changed anything, particularly about the question of security)? The Conservatives have certainly decided to declare victory on this one, but it should probably be noted that while things are going slower than promised, the doors are not closed, which is unlike the calls we’ve seen in several American states and others. Trudeau is sending the message that these refugees are not some outsider menace, as it should be noted that in fact the vast majority of attacks that have happened to date were from those who were born in the country where the attacks happened, and they were radicalized later in life. It does send a message that keeping up with resettlement is happening in spite of the Paris attacks, and that should perhaps be noted too.

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