At a Canada 2020 event last week, Independent Senators Group leaders Yuen Pau Woo and Raymond Saint-Germain spoke about their plans for the continued modernization of the Senate into a more "independent" body, less partisan chamber. In many cases, this was largely a reiteration of many of their fairly wrong-headed notions, but we did get a more explicit articulation from Woo as to his plans for a business committee what he terms a "programming committee" when it comes to deciding on how to manage Senate business, something he has been hinting at for months but has not fully spelled out. We have that now.
Woo laid the groundwork for all of his reform proposals with the 2014 Supreme Court of Canada reference decision regarding the Senate, citing that the rationale behind them was to "return" the Senate to what he says the Supreme Court believed to be its original intent of "a more independent, non-partisan" chamber of Sober Second Thought. The problem here, of course, is that Woo (and many others) have been over-reading what the Supreme Court said they never said it was to be non-partisan, and in fact only referred to how the framers of the constitution sought to divorce the Senate from the short-term calculation of electoral partisan considerations. That is vastly different from what Woo and company have been trying to claim.
As well, in making the case for amendments to the Parliament of Canada Act to give recognition to groups or caucuses other than the government or opposition, Woo seems to give no credence to the role that the opposition plays in a Westminster parliament, particularly as it comes to accountability (which is the whole point of parliament) nor does he mention that part of his rationale for the changes is to ensure that he gets an increased salary as the leader of a "recognized group." He also overplays the myth that senators would only receive instructions from party leaders before this new era of "independence" the whip was only ever illusory, and there were certainly instances where senators would openly defy the wishes of the party leader (especially among the former Liberal senators).
Which brings us to the "programming committee," which Woo once again touts as changes that would ensure the "better functioning" of the Senate, and that it would be "common-sensical" to ensure there was a planning process that any other organization would have in place as though the Senate was any other organization in the country.
"There is a sense of what are the priorities, what are the deadlines, when you do A, which leads to B, which leads to C, and that simply makes it possible for things to be done in a more orderly and efficient manner, and it makes it possible in the case the Senate for senators to plan their time and to prioritize their speeches, their interventions, and their research on any given bill," Woo explained.
While Woo claims the Senate has no such thing, he's wrong they have "scroll meetings" every sitting day, where the leadership teams of the caucuses would meet with some of the table officers and negotiate timelines on legislation, for when critics would respond to sponsors' speeches on a bill, or when they expected to call a vote on those bills. While Woo says they want to plan for the "arrival, passage, and delivery of all bills," claiming "efficiency," this is simply code for time allocation of all bills not just government bills.
It's also likely about the oft-repeated notions about trying to schedule debates for the sake of television ignoring the way that the Senate has gone about its business for over a century, where the sponsor would speak to a bill, and the designated critic would have up to 15 days to craft a response that considered what the sponsor said, and then they would send it off to committee. Given that the new senators all feel the need to speak to bills that they are not sponsoring or acting as critic on, and the fact that Woo himself seems to view the Senate as the varsity debate club, this is an invitation to seeing an increase in canned speeches in the Chamber, thus weakening the character of the Senate.
Additionally, Woo claims that such a committee would help ensure that government bills "not run the risk of some 'pet project' private bills getting in the way or distracting or deflecting us from our primary work," which he says might make senators be more discerning about the senate public bills that they initiate. Again, it's time allocation, and the fact that it would cover private members' business from the Commons and Senate public bills is again concerning because it creates all manner of unintended consequences, that bad bills that should never be adopted getting through out of a misplaced notion that just because it passed the House of Commons that it's worthwhile legislation.
Additionally, Woo doesn't answer one of the more ironic aspects of his proposal he already refuses to hold any of the senators in the ISG to any of the negotiations that his party does engage in when it comes to things like speaking times and calling votes (Senator Murray Sinclair being a particularly egregious example of this), so why would his "programming committee" be any different when it comes to agreements they make with it as opposed to what the leadership teams of the various caucuses negotiate at scroll meetings? Woo keeps telling his own senators that they're independent and he can't tell them what to do so perhaps that's why he feels like he needs the committee, so that they can be forced to adhere to timelines? If so, it's a tacit admission of the failure of the "new, independent" Senate and its ability to work together to get things done. If Woo seriously believes that the automatic time allocation of all business is the only tool that can make this "new" Senate work, then the problem at hand is bigger than anyone wants to admit.
Photo Credit: The Senate of Canada
