While everyone has been preoccupied by the Double-Hyphen Affair for the past month, they entirely missed a near show-down in the Senate that could have set the stage for all-out procedural warfare between the Conservative senators and the Leader of the Government in the Senate err, "government representative," Senator Peter Harder, thanks to a strategic miscalculation on Harder's part. The incident demonstrates once again that there is a complete lack of adult supervision in the Senate, and with the Order Paper in full-blown crisis in the Upper Chamber, it's going to mean that the more these kinds of incidents keep happening, the more likely it becomes that a number of bills may not get to royal assent before the end of June.
When the Senate returned from an extended winter break not their fault, mind you, as Public Works didn't adequately listen to their concerns about the acoustics in the new chamber and lo and behold, they needed to spend several more weeks fixing them before the Senate could return the procedural gamesmanship started off with the Conservative senators engaging in calling standing votes throughout the whole day, ensuring that no business was getting accomplished while they ensured that the bells rang for an hour at a time. And while there were complaints about this, it was done with a particular purpose to get the other caucus groups to negotiate timelines around some of the significant bills that remain on the Order Paper.
Recall that negotiation and horse-trading are how things get done in a legislative chamber like the Senate. Unlike the House of Commons, where the Government House Leader sets the agenda, the Senate operates by having the whole Order Paper read out every day, and any Senator can speak to any item on it. In order to move priority items through, the different caucus groups will tend to negotiate timelines, so that they can have an idea of what the government's priorities are and they can plan accordingly. This differs from the attempts to get a business committee up and running in the Senate, or programming motions, because each of those imposes a form of time allocation on all of the business that comes before it.
Since becoming Government Leader, Harder has consistently eschewed negotiation, and the Independent Senators Group insists that they don't engage in horse-trading because it's allegedly "partisan." Neither attitude is conducive to getting business done in the Chamber. On a few occasions, with high-profile bills like medical assistance in dying or cannabis legalization, the groups did come to an agreement on timelines, but those were rare circumstances, and with big and contentious bills on the Order Paper, like Bill C-69 on environmental assessments, the Conservatives wanted to get some structure around what was planned. And it looks like the tactic of the bells ended up working, because they forced Harder to the table, and they started negotiations.
And this is where things get interesting, because most of this wound up on the record on the floor of the Senate on February 28th when Senator Harder introduced a time allocation motion on Bill C-57. In case you had forgotten, and I wouldn't blame you in this case, Bill C-57 is the Federal Sustainable Development Act, which basically governs how federal departments need to come up with sustainable plans. It largely affects Treasury Board, and is not a very big deal. The Senate had made a couple of amendments, sent it back to the House of Commons, and they accepted some and refused others. And yet for some unknown reason, Harder decided to invoke time allocation on this non-contentious, unimportant bill, and risked all-out procedural warfare with the Conservatives.
When Harder claimed that he hadn't been able to reach an agreement with the representatives of recognized parties on the Senate's response to the Commons on the rejected amendments to the bill, the Conservative whip, Senator Don Plett, exploded.
"I'm not sure who Senator Harder is referring to, but quite frankly, I would like to tell this chamber that he, our leader and I had an agreement that we would definitely call the question on this today," Plett stated.
Furthermore, Senator Yuen Pau Woo, who is the "facilitator" of the ISG, backed up Plett's claims.
"The loyal and largest parliamentary group in the Senate can confirm that I was not consulted directly at all by the opposition on this alleged deal, but it was conveyed to me via Senator Harder," Woo said. "Part of that deal included a commitment to have a third reading vote on Bill C-69 on May 30. If, in fact, that is part of the deal, I can concur it should go ahead."
Harder claimed that Plett said they didn't have a deal, to which Plett argued that it was over Bill C-48 the West Coast tanker ban bill that they hadn't agreed, but they did shake hands over the plan to call the question on Bill C-57 that day, and on the timeline for Bill C-69.
It took more back-and-forth exchanges and a one-hour vote bell before Harder withdrew the time allocation motion, and Bill C-57 was passed on division (meaning that they wouldn't bother with a standing vote, but it was on the record that it's not unanimous), but the whole episode laid out how ineptly that Harder is playing his hand.
If Harder hadn't backed down, he would have risked the Conservatives going to war with him over every piece of business left on the Order Paper, which is why his decision to invoke time allocation on that particular bill is mind-boggling. That he miscalculated so badly is mystifying, and calls into question what advice if any Harder is receiving. It's possible that he may have to invoke time allocation on bills the closer he gets to the end of June a risky calculation given that he controls a caucus of three and would have to really convince the Senate Liberals and Independents to his cause but it would need to be done on something big to make it worthwhile. This was not that bill, and it augurs ill for how he will handle the remaining weeks on the parliamentary calendar.
Photo Credit: CBC News
