As Bill C-14 on medical assistance in dying is being considered by the Senate, along with Bill C-7 on a collective bargaining regime for the RCMP, there have been some pretty strange signals coming from the government when it comes to amendments. While substantive amendments to both bills were rejected when they came from the Commons, the government continues to signal that they would be "open" to amendments coming from the Senate, which makes me suspect that there are political shenanigans afoot.
By now, we are all well aware that MPs are loathe to take on some pretty tough topics until they are forced to by the courts, whether it's abortion, same-sex marriage, or medical assistance in dying. They prefer to be "forced" by the courts to make them deal with the issue rather than deal with it on their own, and when backbench attempts are made, they are often quickly voted down and MPs insist that it's been dealt with. This has happened time and again.
Governments past also refused to deal with collective bargaining for the RCMP for years until successfully challenged at the Supreme Court, meaning that C-7 is just as much in response to the court's ruling as C-14 was, and its extended deadline has also passed. In both cases, the government refused to accept significant amendments coming from MPs, usually citing that to do so would slow down the process and they would miss the deadlines imposed by the Supreme Court. Seeing as those deadlines have now passed, and the sky has not fallen, that their excuses ring hollow and that time could have been spent to consider and adopt those more substantive amendments.
With C-14 in any case, it does look like the government has been playing a particular game about trying to appease the interest groups who are opposed to assisted dying, while insisting that they are "striking a balance" between those who are looking to end their suffering, and the obligations placed on them by the Supreme Court. Of course, the Court decision could stand on its own without legislation, and the decision would stand on its own as the guiding framework, while the provincial medical regulatory bodies put in their own guidelines to fill in the gaps, much as has been done with abortion. But the government insisted that they needed this legislative response, and here we are with the bill.
Where I get suspicious is in the fact that the government keeps telling senators that they will consider their amendments after those same amendments were already rejected in the Commons. The Senate does have an absolute veto on legislation, and they could defeat C-14 if the government doesn't accept their changes (a rare move, but arguably justified if the bill is indeed unconstitutional), so there is some constitutional heft behind the Senate's words. But in Question Period on Monday, Trudeau made it known that he is fully expecting amendments to the bill by saying that they would consider those amendments "when we get the bill back." In other words, it's inevitable.
And where the political shenanigans come in to play is the fact that the government looks very much to have set up a situation where they will be "forced" to accept those amendments from the Senate, just as they are so often "forced" by the Courts to deal with difficult issues. Because when is it not convenient to hide behind an unelected body when it comes to escaping the responsibility or blame for having to make tough decisions when you have interest groups who are clearly unhappy with you for trying to advance the law in a significant way?
Where I think this is even more a case of political shenanigans is that Trudeau is looking to be "forced" to accept Senate amendments in order to prove that his particular Senate reform programme has borne fruit, and that it shows that the more independent upper chamber is once again proving its worth. Not that they didn't actually do good work before, but now he's making it blindingly obvious that they are doing even better work now that they have been "unshackled" from the party's national caucus.
Another hint of why this is the underlying motive at play came from a response that Trudeau gave during Monday's QP, when the NDP pointed to the concerns that independent Senate Liberals had regarding C-14, and implored the government to heed those concerns and amendments the bill.
"If there was ever an example of why the reforms that the Liberal Party made to the Senate over the past years removing partisanship and patronage from that place, there is no better example than the NDP highlighting the great work the Senate is doing weighing in on an important piece of legislation," Trudeau said.
As clever as it is, I am concerned that as it's almost cheating the Senate out of the good work that it does (particularly on this bill, with the joint committee on medical assistance in dying before the bill was introduced and with the pre-study and its recommendations that weren't adopted by the government) by giving them this freebie. It also devalues the work that MPs were doing to try to make these very same amendments, but whom the government's majority shot down. That the very same government would accept them from the Senate makes one wonder (except of course that taking them from the Senate gives them an out from public pressure from those opposed to the issue).
Long-term, I think it's a dangerous game for MPs to keep hiding behind other institutions, and on the assisted dying issue, I think that they risk looking like laggards. That the heavy lifting and substantive debate was left to the Senate once again, I do wonder if Trudeau's plan won't backfire and cause more damage to the image of the Commons itself by giving the Senate the spotlight to demonstrate that they are Parliament's grown-ups.
