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Senate pages staff the doors to the Red Chamber on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.Dave Chan/The Globe and Mail

Now is just the time for some sober second thought. But the Senate of Canada doesn't seem up to the job.

The government is rushing its elections bill through the House of Commons, over the objections of opposition parties, who are loudly screaming that Stephen Harper's Conservatives are trying to rig the system for the 2015 vote. There's a situation that calls for checks and balances, for someone to slow things down.

(What is the Fair Elections Act? Read The Globe and Mail's easy explanation)

The Upper House is unelected and undemocratic, but senators still claim they provide one service: taking contentious legislation and making sure it gets some less politically motivated scrutiny, especially when politicians are moving hastily on serious matters. Sober second thought is supposed to be their mission.

You'd think senators, embarrassed by expenses scandals and widely considered useless, would want to show their worth, by giving the elections bill a good long look. Elections, after all, are always an area where elected politicians should be watched carefully, and forced to tread slowly.

Instead, the Conservative majority has rushed the bill into a "pre-study" in the Senate's legal and constitutional affairs committee, even though it hasn't yet passed the House of Commons. After eight years in power, the Conservatives introduced the elections bill in February, and now are racing to pass it so its provisions can be implemented before the next election.

The committee's lone independent, Senator Jean-Claude Rivest, said the reason for the "pre-study" seems pretty obvious: when the bill passes in the Commons, it will be rushed through the Senate, with the Conservatives claiming there's already been enough examination.

Now, in committee the Conservatives are lining up to defend the government. "It's the partisan game," Senator Rivest said. "They're defending the party line." It's also pretty clear the Liberals – members of the so-called Senate Liberal caucus – are against the bill, too, he noted.

Mr. Rivest, who was appointed by Brian Mulroney but left the Tory caucus when then the Progressive Conservatives merged with the Canadian alliance, said he's got some concerns about the substance of bill – particularly sections that appear to undermine the independence of the Chief Electoral Officer, and restrict his ability to speak publicly about elections issues. But it's the process that worries him most.

"Elections law doesn't belong to the government," he said. "In this case, they acted unilaterally, without talking to the parties. And the fundamental point is that electoral law doesn't belong to the government."

In Quebec, where he was an advisor to late premier Robert Bourassa, parties work out the elections bill by consensus, he said. (In fact, that's usually been the practice in Ottawa, too.) Whether the bill is good or bad, the problem is that it is being rammed through in a way that will cast doubt on the elections process, he said.

So far, Conservative senators have shown little desire to slow down the process. Mr. Harper wants the bill passed, fast. Senators seem to be ready to do as they are told.

Some Conservative senators have blocked their own party's wishes before. Tory Senator Hugh Segal put forward an amendment that gutted a Conservative MP's bill on disclosing union salaries, supported by a third of the Tory caucus.

But the elections bill is a government bill, one that Mr. Harper wants badly. In committee this week, most of the Conservatives came armed with scripted questions that echoed the government line. Conservative senators have already voted once to cut off debate, so the bill could go for "pre-study." But so far, there's been little sign of sober second thought.

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