There was a little bit of hidden glee among Conservatives on Parliament Hill at the thought that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s experiment with independent senators might hoist him on his own petard.
Some of the independents in the Red Chamber are toying with the idea of ping-ponging the Liberals’ hallmark bill to legalize cannabis back to the House of Commons, maybe even more than once, threatening to delay its passage – with the help of 32 Conservative senators.
The rebellion may well fizzle. It’s common to see end-of-session brinksmanship in both houses of Parliament, and it often ends with MPs or senators deciding they’d rather go home. But this week is still shaping up as a key test of Mr. Trudeau’s independent-senator idea.
It’s a period of chaos the Senate has never seen before. The government’s official representative, Peter Harder, has few solid allies. The Liberals are a small, bitter group expelled from the party caucus by Mr. Trudeau. The independents have been told unelected senators have an important role, so they’re willing to amend bills – and some aren’t precisely sure when they should not. The Conservatives, once the party of Senate Reform, argue senators have every right to defeat or amend any legislation.
Because of the numbers, the Conservatives typically only need the support of a dozen of the others to pass an amendment.
Now, many of those independents appointed by Mr. Trudeau are miffed that his government rejected their amendments to the cannabis bill, in particular one that would have explicitly allowed provinces such as Quebec and Manitoba to bar people from growing pot plants in their homes. Some see the Senate as a protector of provincial prerogatives. Some have been in a mood to teach the government a lesson by amending the bill again.
But that would send another dysfunctional message about the new Senate: that unelected senators are free to bat around the high-profile legislation that was part of the government’s electoral platform.
For the Conservatives, that would probably raise a cheer. Conservative senators have argued that Mr. Trudeau’s independent Senate is a fraud, and that his appointees are left-leaning government puppets – Liberals dressed up as independents.
But there’s been another change, too. The Conservatives have emerged as the party arguing that it’s a senator’s right to amend government bills, even multiple times.
This is the party whose Reform forebears vowed to replace the unelected chamber; Conservative PM Stephen Harper spent the first four years of his tenure railing against the illegitimate obstructionism of the “Liberal-dominated Senate.” But now, they reject the notion that they should be restrained from voting to rewrite government bills multiple times.
After all, as Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer noted last week, the Conservatives don’t have a majority in the Senate. And they’re the opposition. They vote against the government. If some of Mr. Trudeau’s appointees side with the Tories to amend government legislation, that’s Mr. Trudeau’s problem.
That used to be the way the Senate worked, sort of – Liberals and Conservatives voted on party lines. Except that when the opposition had the majority in the Senate, they usually made sure their votes were ineffective. They’d let government legislation pass on voice votes, where the smaller number of government senators would yell louder than the opposition, and the Speaker would pretend the Yeas won.
Now, there isn’t that kind of old-school agreement. If the Conservatives vote to amend a bill, and a dozen independents side with them, it will be amended and sent back to the Commons. In May, the Senate insisted on sending amendments on a transportation bill back to the Commons for a second time. On Thursday, the 46 independent senators met to discuss whether they should do it again with the pot bill. If they do, it will be a sign that the unelected Senate no longer feels bound by the old limits.
The government has suggested the new Senate impose limits. Mr. Harder released a paper in April proposing rules on what types of bills the Senate can amend or defeat. Conservative senators blasted it as a government attempt to stifle democracy.
The pot bill will eventually go through. But Senate amendments do delay, or pressure a government to give in. Mr. Scheer may want to remember that. If he dreams ahead to a future as prime minister, he can foresee a Senate dominated by Mr. Trudeau’s independents – a group of left-leaning free agents who have heard Conservatives argue that they have every right to vote against the government again and again.
Campbell Clark