On Thursday afternoon, the Independent Senators Group "facilitators," Senators Yuen Pau Woo and Raymonde Saint-Germain, summoned reporters to the Senate's foyer to announce that the ISG would be focusing on two elements of Senate "reform" in the upcoming Parliament the "equality of groups" in the Senate, and rule changes to eliminate dilatory motions and procedural tactics in order to ensure more structured debates. Throughout, however, Woo was somewhat cagey and wouldn't come out and say just what kinds of changes he was looking for, so if you weren't already aware of what was on the table, you might be taken in by his insistence that he would let others come up with proposals before he then proceeded to describe the kind of business committee that he and others have been pushing for.
On the subject of "equality of groups," this is essentially some of the changes to the Parliament of Canada Act that Woo and others have been pushing for, and which prime minister Justin Trudeau did commit to making in his party's election platform and Woo specifically said he wanted mention of this in the upcoming Speech from the Throne. The question remains as to how extensive those planned changes are to be on a basic level, Woo has especially been pushing for the recognition of other leadership teams in the legislation, which stipulates the pay increases for caucus leaders, deputy leaders, whips and deputy whips, and in particular, that it currently only contemplates those for the Leader of the Government in the Senate, and the Leader of the Opposition. That we now have more than three caucuses (especially if the Liberals/Progressives can attract new members in the coming weeks) the ISG in particular has been grumbling about the "unfairness" that their leader doesn't get a pay increase, though the ISG are getting the largest budget allocations from the Senate's internal budgeting process because they now hold the plurality of seats.
Pay is one thing, but there has also been a push to use the Parliament of Canada Act to "entrench" the reforms that Trudeau has been making in order to keep the Senate more "independent," even though there is nothing that I can see in the Act that would have any bearing on that for the Senate, it's largely about financial administration, the powers of their deputy Speaker, and the Senate Ethics Officer. Trying to make the new appointment advisory process a fixture in legislation would be a tough sell in proving that it's not unconstitutional in how it attempts to fetter the prime minister's authority to make appointments as defined by the Constitution Act, 1867. Trying to fetter the powers of the leaders of the government and the opposition in the Parliament of Canada Act, as opposed to the Rules of the Senate, would also seem to me to be ham-fisted, and frankly an invitation for the executive and the House of Commons to intrude on the Senate's internal operations.
And then there is the concern about the use of dilatory motions, which Woo is quick to dismiss as merely partisan gamesmanship as opposed to the legitimate tactics inherent in a parliamentary democracy. When asked about the possibility that removing the ability to use these tactics now would allow a future government to railroad the Senate on legislation that may be questionable, Woo dismissed the concerns out of hand and gave an ode to the Senate's role in reviewing legislation and coming to a decision on it, ignoring that it also has a role to play in accountability.
There is also the fact that much of the use of those motions in the previous Parliament particularly toward the end was to force negotiations around legislative timelines, and to force the Leader of the Government in the Senate err, "government representative," Senator Peter Harder, to the table as is his job. The Conservatives were quite public about their motives in doing so, and Woo could have used his own influence to try to persuade Harder to come to the table, but he doesn't appear to have wanted anything to do with that. And that's a lot of what this boils down to the fact that both Harder and the ISG don't believe that they should have to negotiate timelines on bills, because they believe that doing so is inherently partisan.
"What we are calling for is a more orderly process one which allows debate to take place fully and thoroughly, and which allows Senators above all to prepare themselves to debate in a way that makes more sense," said Woo. "You cannot properly prepare for a debate if speeches take place months apart from each other. If you have a planning process which allows for some sense of when debates might place on which bills, Senators will be able to perform even better under the old system."
And this is the rub the "orderly process" and the concern about speeches taking place "months" apart (a gross exaggeration) ignores the way in which debate happens, as well as the fact that there is already a process it's just that Harder and the ISG largely ignore it, and the ISG in particular refuses to hold their members to any agreements that come out of it.
Woo is apparently under the impression that the Senate is a debate club, whereas the practice had evolved so that at second reading of a bill, the sponsor would give a speech as to the merits of the bill, and the assigned critic to said bill would take that speech, give it some thought and prepare a response a few days later, and from there, it would go off to committee. Nowadays, senators are falling all over themselves to speak to bills unnecessarily (while patting themselves on the back about not being whipped), drawing out that process. Woo and others have given the impression that with the proceedings now being televised that they want more concentrated debate on bills, oblivious to the fact that it will simply turn into canned speeches as we see in the Commons. This is not something to emulate.
As for the "orderly process," that already happens in the daily Scroll meetings between the leadership teams of the various caucuses they just need to actually participate properly and impress upon their members that they have come up with timelines and that it's in everyone's interests to respect them. A business committee would instead impose time allocation on all business and Woo wants to include private members' business as part of that, which is a dangerous overreach. The rules have worked for decades Woo and his caucus simply need to actually respect them rather than dismissing them as a product of a partisan era, because they (and Harder) are the problem with how the Senate is operating not the partisan caucuses.
Photo Credit: Vancouver Sun
