In the days since Government Leader in the Senate err, "government representative" Senator Peter Harder dropped his nuclear programming motion that would affect eleven bills at various stages, there was a great deal of pushback.  The Conservatives went to war over it, and within 48 hours, Harder was forced to withdraw it.  But that doesn't mean that agendas aren't coming out of the woodwork over this, and that the various factions in the Senate aren't trying to use the Order Paper crisis for their own ends.  So while an agreement on timetables for certain bills was reached, Harder once again overplayed his hand, and came away wounded as a result.

With a lot of threads to pick up on in this, let's start with the Conservatives calling Harder out as a bad faith negotiator in the Chamber.  The Conservative whip, Senator Don Plett, stated that he had an agreement with Harder on Bills C-75 and C-85 to fast-track them.

"Your words to me when I left your office were that if I could make that change [on these bills], you would not introduce a programming motion," Plett stated.  "I had never heard of a programming motion.  I kept my part of the bargain.  You did not.  In complete contradiction of your word to me, you tabled a programming motion that is seven pages long and impacts 11 bills."

Harder refused to take responsibility for it, and very quickly the Conservatives moved to adjourn the Chamber for the day, before Harder could start debate on his motion, and they managed to get enough votes to do so.  It was a taste of what would happen every day until Harder withdrew the motion, and Thursday afternoon he did.  He claimed he came to an agreement with the leadership of the other groups, but my own sources indicate it was more of a case that the deal was imposed on him.  Much of this timetable that was agreed to had been in the works for weeks and he didn't want to play ball, but no longer had a choice.

The final timetable that was agreed to contains dates that are later than Harder wanted in some cases, and don't have third reading dates on some major legislation that the Conservatives in particular are opposed to, such as bills C-48 (tanker ban) and C-69 (environmental assessments).  That means that Harder will need to try his luck at time allocation or closure on those when the time comes, but those would be individual motions on individual bills at third reading not a sweeping motion on eleven bills at various stages.

Throughout this drama, however, the Independent Senators Group tried to insert themselves as a voice of moderation, but they had an agenda at play as well.  There are some key phrases in their press release that stick out one of them is that they want "an orderly process for the review of Government bills, including timelines and end-dates for the passage of bills through the Senate."  This reads to me as code for a desire for a business committee, whose purpose would be to essentially time allocate all business in the Senate rather than allow for the current process of negotiation that the ISG should be participating in.  I'm firmly opposed to the notion of such a committee because it takes away from the powers of individual senators to speak to any item on the Order Paper that they choose, and because it's simply time allocation by stealth.

The ISG's "facilitator," Senator Yuen Pau Woo, also blamed the Conservatives for not including the ISG in their negotiations, which misplaces the blame entirely it's not the Conservatives' job to bring the ISG to the table, it's Harder's.  That is, for what it's worth to bring the ISG to any table because they don't whip their members, so they have no way to enforce agreements.  But this also ignores the fact that negotiations between the caucuses are supposed to take place daily at the "scroll meetings" which the ISG participates in.  Well, "participates," given that they don't engage in the horse-trading that gets business moved in the Senate because they believe that to be "partisan."  They have ample opportunity to negotiate, so claiming otherwise is bogus.

Woo also used another key phrase, which was that they found themselves in that position of Harder bringing in the programming motion because "the Opposition in the Senate does not recognize the Independent Senators Group as a legitimate group on par with partisan caucuses in the Upper Chamber."  This is almost certainly a reference to the changes to the Parliament of Canada Act that Woo has been agitating for, which would give the ISG or any other group that may splinter off of them official recognition at a certain size, and would entitle their leadership to new funding.  This late in the parliamentary calendar, it's unclear if the government will be willing or able to table any changes to the Act, though there has been suspicion that it may wind up as part of the upcoming omnibus budget implementation bill, and it would be a question of how extensive the proposed changes would be, because changes to that Act may require sign-off from the provinces if they're extensive enough, according to some legal analyses.  Regardless, Woo is using this crisis to push his own agenda forward while also trying to make the Conservatives look like they're the unreasonable party at the table.  They're not.

While it's indisputably a good thing that Harder backed down and withdrew the motion, it nevertheless leaves the problem that he didn't think about the kind of precedent that he was setting with a motion like this.  Imagine any future government deciding that they can bigfoot the work of the Senate with a motion like this so long as they have enough seats, or can corral enough Independents to their side by whatever means they can muster.  It's insane, and yet Harder went there without much hesitation, and rationalized it as trying to own the Conservatives, because partisanship is bad.  It also confirms suspicions that Harder has been precipitating the crisis on the Order Paper in order to convince the Senate that they need a business committee, and Woo's release is indicative that they're open to that, which is a problem.  Above all, it's hard to see how Harder's remaining as Government Leader can continue to be tenable with this big of a miscalculation.  Granted, prime minister Justin Trudeau can continue to neglect the Senate and the mess he's created with Harder's ill-considered appointment, so Harder may remain in place.  Nevertheless, it's looking increasingly like this attempt at "doing politics differently" with the Senate is blowing up in Trudeau's face.

As the national conversation around the Double-Hyphen Affair carries on interminably, and both sides of the dispute continue to draw blood without a decisive blow, while everyone else keeps demanding a smoking gun that doesn't exist, there is a part of this conversation that only gets referred to in snide asides the sarcastic refrain of "so much for doing politics differently."  Indeed, it's also something that Jody Wilson-Raybould keeps going back to herself in her own written statements about her future, as she justifies her actions throughout the whole Affair.  But how much of this is really about doing politics differently, or how differently can politics be done, particularly in a country like ours?

A lot of the fallout of this Affair has been the Trudeau Liberals laying in the bed that they made for themselves, given how they constantly made a point of how virtuous they were.  Gender-balanced cabinets were not only because "it's 2015," but it was also articulated as an affirmative action program for mediocre men.  "Add women, change politics," was a slogan that is now being repeated back to them because apparently, they did change politics.  "Nines hire tens" was another phrase that should also be thrown in their faces given some of the incompetence we've seen in how they've handled themselves throughout.

Don't get me wrong to a certain extent, they are doing things differently than the previous government did.  There are two-fold problems with this, however one is that they think it's enough and they can rest on those laurels, and the other is dealing with the expectations they've created.  After all, "doing politics differently" is vague enough that it lets people conjure up a unicorn that will never be achievable in real life.  And yet, there is so much high-mindedness by this government that it quickly reached a point of arrogance, which also explains why they're so bad at issues management and communications.  They refuse to communicate like human beings, or to properly deal with the problems they've created for themselves because they appear to be too good to do so and that's a problem for them.  I'm not sure that this is the kind of "doing politics differently" that would endear them to anyone.  And yet here we are.

Part of the problem with thinking that you can (or should) approach politics or governing from a standpoint of being so performatively principled is that reality gets in the way and there is a lot of hard reality to governing in Canada.  There are a myriad of provincial, linguistic, and cultural interests that are difficult to bridge at the best of times, which are compounded by the other realities of the country, such as the oligopolistic nature of so much of the business community, which makes it difficult for governments to deal with them in a way that is different from any previous government, which is why this collision with SNC-Lavalin, or another major corporation, was in many ways inevitable.  And a government that is high on its own virtues will deal with them in a way that means well trying to protect jobs being the obvious example.  Going out of their way, in fact, to try and do so, and look at where it got them.

Amidst this, I have to wonder where "doing politics differently," with adding women to change politics, and all of those kinds of slogans, butts up against reality.  At what point to we expect the dose of cynicism to come in?  At what point do we expect compromises in order to deal with some crisis, real or imagined, in order to get things done?  And that's partly where I think this whole Affair starts to get messy for people was it unfair to expect strong, principled women like Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott, who had little previous political experience, to accept some of that cynicism then they were promised a different way of doing things?  After all, so much of politics deals with horse-trading and compromises particularly when you are balancing as many competing interests as we have in Canada.  How much of the conversations over SNC-Lavalin had to do with trying to find compromises, and was that interpreted by Wilson-Raybould as pressure or interference?  Experienced ministers and staffers insist that their jobs deal with pressure, but did this rise to the level of inappropriate pressure?  There is no bright line for this, and I am forced to wonder if this too didn't get compounded by the expectations of doing politics differently, creating an interpretation of the events for Wilson-Raybould that didn't mesh with those of the others?

I go back to that open letter that Wilson-Raybould put out where she dismissed the "old, cynical view" of the way things get done, and talks of "doing politics differently" in particular, in a less-partisan and more open manner, striving for consensus, and rejecting the "increasing culture of conflict, empty partisanship, and cynical games."  As part of her submission to the justice committee, she added that she looks forward to a future "where we truly do politics differently."  She sees herself as a truth-teller and has these principles that I wonder whether they are able to survive the intractable, grimy realities of politics particularly given that Wilson-Raybould resorted to breaching her own ethical obligations by recording that conversation with Michael Wernick, and gave a performance on the tape that was recognizable to someone like me, who does interviews on tape for a living, as directing the conversation and asking leading questions in the hopes of getting a "gold" quote for future use.  Recording that call, making it public, and ensuring that she won't be trusted by her colleagues in the future is certainly doing politics differently but probably not in the way she espouses, which is unfortunate.

In a way, it's good that Canada can have this conversation at a time when other countries are dealing with existential crises of their own.  But perhaps it should behove us to temper our expectations, and that while "better is always possible," as Trudeau keeps saying, "doing politics differently" is a loaded term.  But the bottom line is that this government can't just rely on assuring everyone that they're virtuous that has clearly blown up in their faces, and it's time to return to a dose of reality.

Photo Credit: CTV News

The Order Paper crisis in the Senate went nuclear on Tuesday afternoon, as Leader of the Government in the Senate err, "government representative," Senator Peter Harder, tabled an unprecedented seven-page programming motion in the Senate Chamber, which for all intents and purposes was a declaration of procedural war against the opposition.  More than that, it's an absolute admission of failure by Harder that his refusal to do his own job to negotiate the passage of bills through the Chamber, and the subsequent crisis on the Order Paper that he created, led him to take the nuclear option well before it should have even been necessary to contemplate.  It's gross incompetence, and is going to leave lasting damage to the institution.

There has never been such a programming motion in the Senate before, and certainly not one of this magnitude, which covers eleven different bills, all of them at different stages some still at Second Reading, some in committee.  This goes beyond simple time allocation the rules of the Senate stipulate that it can only be used for one stage of one bill per motion.  To say that this programming motion is unprecedented is an understatement it actively undermines all of Harder's own high-minded rhetoric on the deliberative work of the Senate.

In the hours since the motion was tabled, Harder put out a press release and tweeted some self-aggrandizing justification for doing so, citing that he was "proposing a schedule that will allow Canadians to better follow the Senate's work, with organized debates and votes."  That's, to be frank, dishonest claptrap.  Saying you're doing this to "organize" debates is just imposing time allocation using the excuse of televised proceedings as a fig leaf.  In the press release, Harder said that some of these bills were moving too slowly.  The problem there, however, is that it's his own fault that things are not proceeding because he refuses to do his job.  He cited Bill C-57 as an example of Conservative obstruction, but they were obstructing because they were trying to force negotiations on other bills, and when they did get an agreement on moving forward on that bill, Harder overplayed his hand and was ready to move time allocation when the Conservatives were about to pass it.

Harder wrote that a programming motion was used to organize the debates and votes on the cannabis bill, so it's just fine.  That was a motion on one bill that was done in agreement by the various caucuses.  Using a motion for eleven bills at various stages is not even in the same universe as the motion on C-45.

"Given past practice and ongoing delay, we just can't be sure that the Opposition wants to give these bills fair and timely consideration," Harder quoted himself in his release.  "Canadians expect Senators to respect public business, and to do their work in both a thorough and diligent fashion."

The Opposition has been asking for negotiation on timelines on bills.  They had an agreement on two bills that Harder wanted to move forward on Tuesday morning and were ready to fast-track them (one bill to a committee with an overloaded docket, one that they were fully in support of) and he went back on his word and moved ahead with the programming motion.  This after his going back on a previous agreement around C-57.  This is how he expects to manage the agenda in the Senate?  Really?

Trying to blame these delays on the Opposition is frankly dishonest.  Nearly every single prime minister since Confederation has had to deal with a Senate where the opposition was the majority at one point, and things still got done.  Bills got passed, and the government's agenda (largely) got through because the two sides could negotiate something Harder refuses to do.  It's not helped by the fact that the Independent Senators Group refuses to engage in the necessary horse-trading of getting stuff done because they are under the mistaken impression that it's "partisan."  Harder has been trying to call for a business committee to time allocate all debates going forward on his behalf, so that he can do even less work than he is currently, and it's been suspected that he's engineered this Order Paper crisis in order to make the case for it.  This heavy-handed and ham-fisted programming motion is quite likely a salvo in that campaign, which shows the apparent "need" for such time allocation because the Bad Opposition is being partisan, and that's bad.  That he'll use the excuse of organizing debates for the sake of television just adds to the flimsy excuses that he won't do his own job.

And because he's taken this action, he has effectively declared war on the Conservatives, and they are having none of it.  You can expect them to take every procedural tactic they can in the coming weeks to frustrate Harder's agenda to make a point, and if that means needing bells for all proceedings, or having their leader give four-hour-long speeches on bills, then they are fully prepared to do so.  I can't imagine that the Senate Liberals are going to go for any of this either, particularly because this is such an unprecedented and ham-fisted manoeuvre.  That leaves the Independents.  I've heard that Senator Woo, the ISG "facilitator," is going to wait to listen to the debate on Harder's programming motion before he comes to any conclusion one way or the other, and Harder will only get his way if he can bring the Independents on-side.  But they need to realize that this is about giving Harder the power to impose the most draconian version of time allocation in Senate history, simply because he has refused to do his job to negotiate with the various caucuses to get his agenda through.

We also can't forget that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau isn't blameless in all of this either.  His decision to completely divorce himself from the Senate is not a situation of benign neglect it's actual neglect, and his chosen "representative" is causing real damage to the institution, and will continue to cause damage the longer he goes unchecked.  This situation should never have happened, and yet here we are.  It's now up to the Independents to see if they'll let Harder abuse his authority and turn the chamber into the very rubber stamp that he accused it of being under the old regime.