The Thursday Question 8: The Senate
What to do about the unreformed and seemingly unreformable Upper House
“All aids and supplies granted to the Sovereign by the Parliament of Canada are the sole gift of the House of Commons…”
- Standing Order #80
For this week’s issue of The Thursday Question, we look ahead to the challenge that the Senate will pose to a future Conservative government.
Full disclosure: I was deep into the Harper government efforts to reform the Senate: the bills to limit the tenure of senators to six years, and to let a prime minister hold advisory votes before appointing senators. I worked on the failed effort to reach a compromise with Stéphane Dion on the tenure bill, and on contingency plans for what we would do if the Liberals used the Senate to block government bills as they did against Mr Mulroney. I have and have had several friends in the Upper House. It is not a strange place to me.
A future Conservative government will, presumably, dispense with the Trudeau era pretence of a non-partisan Senate; legislating is a political act and partisanship is one of the checks and balances we place on politics. But that future government will have, at best, a small and shrinking Senate caucus. Some of senators who have left the Conservative caucus in recent years might support a future Conservative government. Some of the Trudeau appointees will likely be helpful, too. But if the Liberal NDP alliance lasts, the ranks of the Conservative Senate caucus will drop from 15 to 12 or even fewer. That would leave a future Conservative PM without a functioning caucus able even to fill committees and carry debates on legislation. And while section 26 of the Constitution Act, 1867, could let a future government appoint four or eight new senators, there is some doubt about whether that power can be used when it would not decisively correct the balance of votes in the Senate.
And simply getting legislation through the Senate is only one of the problems to face a future Conservative government. The Trudeau fakery about non-partisanship, although a facade, is catnip to progressives who love non-partisans, especially non-partisan experts, more than elected officials and it has filled many Senators with the idea that they sit beyond or even above “mere” partisanship. So, the next Conservative prime minister will not only have trouble getting legislation through the Senate and its committees. He or she will also face dozens of senators, each with two or three staffers, popping off with their independent and therefore valuable views on all manners of government initiatives. Conservative politicians often find hostile commentary from the many university professors who are on reporters’ speed dial lists annoying. Wait till such a government faces 60 or 80 “non-partisan” senators tweeting hostile commentary 24/7 and running committee investigations from inside Parliament Hill. Their positions might not be as easy to dismiss as those of academics.
A future Conservative government will need to start laying the groundwork for a defence against both threats soon. It should also leave room for Trudeau appointees to stay out of the way once that government takes office. Smearing all Trudeau appointees as Liberal partisans is counter productive and false. Ian Shugart wasn’t a Liberal and no one should assume the other retired public servants in the Red Chamber are. It is possible that many recent appointees could play a constructive role supporting a future Conservative government. Labelling them all “Trudeau hacks” isn’t helpful in the long run.
What the senators are, with few exceptions, is unelected, and in a democracy the unelected should be careful to defer to the political judgement of the elected. If the unelected Senate chooses to block the legislation, or, worse, the appropriations of a future government once they have been passed by the House then that Senate is out of control. Since the Supreme Court has blocked constructive efforts to reform it, the Senate should be abolished. That’s the one remaining reform option on the table, and one that would carry the requisite provincial support if circumstances align. It is also a line that would be better drawn in the sand ahead of the next election.