In the wake of last week's emergency legislation passed by the Skeleton Parliament, a plaintive cry went out both by open letter and over the Twitter Machine from the Independent Senators Group's "facilitator," Senator Yuen Pau Woo, decrying that unlike the House of Commons, the Senate wasn't able to agree to any kind of oversight over the emergency federal measures and spending that were rushed through both Chambers in short order. The problem with that cry was that it was entirely based on revisionist history, and that Woo's lament was little more than crocodile tears given that he was directly responsible for the collapse of the discussions that would have seen oversight committees being created.
The other caucus leaders in the Senate were quick to call Woo out, particularly for the glaring omission in his lament for the lack of agreement namely, that he left out the Progressives (aka the former Senate Liberals) from the negotiations because they are now considered "non-affiliated" as their numbers have fallen below the threshold for official recognition. Senator Jane Cordy, the Progressive leader, sent her own open letter to rebut Woo the day after his letter was released.
"During discussions, senators should know that several options were proposed to allow for non-affiliated representation on the two committees, including the addition of one seat to each committee, but these were all rejected by Senator Woo on behalf of the Independent Senators Group," Cordy wrote.
Why does this matter? Because these are some of the longest-serving and most experienced senators in the Chamber, who have the kind of institutional memory that would serve parliament especially well during crises like this one. It also denies the rights of senators to meaningfully participate in the work of the Senate, which is how the rules of the Chamber are set up to allow it's why a single senator can hold up any piece of business, as it ensures that they have the ability to be heard and can't be steamrolled by party or caucus leadership.
Following Cordy's letter was one by the leader of the Conservatives in the Senate, Senator Don Plett, who spilled the tea on the whole negotiation.
"The plan had unanimous consent from all recognized groups and the unaffiliated senators, but you refused to allow it to proceed," Plett wrote.
Plett also noted that Woo's motion was doomed to fail precisely because of the demonstrated unacceptability of excluding those senators, and yet Woo went ahead and proposed it himself when it was to have been proposed by Senator Peter Harder, but Harder opted not to move the motion after Woo rejected it (and I will also note that Woo insisted on travelling to Ottawa for the few hours that the Senate was sitting, much as Andrew Scheer and Jagmeet Singh did because it was going to give him some media exposure).
"Your refusal to demonstrate collegiality and civility at a time when the world is united in its efforts to defeat a common enemy COVID-19 is disappointing," Plett wrote. "The Senate has always been and remains a chamber that protects the voices of minorities. And yet you habitually start most of your negotiations and conversations with the qualifying statement, 'I control the largest group in the Senate.' This persistent appeal to majority power in such collegial discussions is troubling and is the antithesis of the spirit of cooperation in the Senate."
Woo's deliberately excluding the Progressives from these talks has an air of pettiness around it that seems to speak to a more underlying issue that he has been demonstrably been doing everything he can to keep them from re-forming as a recognized group, both in doing everything he possibly can to keep any ISG members from crossing over to them (and I have it on very good authority that those who were considering it were pressured by Woo to stay, including his making a number of promises to them that we'll see if he can actually deliver on).
In the broader picture, it is raising questions about the ability of the Senate to work together at times like these, because there has been so much focus on changing the rules to suit Woo's agenda, to the detriment of 150 years of history as an institution, and the broader concerns about how Westminster parliaments operate. The single-minded drive to make the Senate a chamber comprised solely of independent senators is ahistorical and unconstitutional, in part because Woo and others have been deliberately misreading what the Supreme Court of Canada said in their reference decision on the role of partisanship in the chamber.
It's also raising all kinds of questions about the current state of negotiations in the Senate about committee composition and the role that "non-affiliated" senators like the Progressives can play on committees, where Woo says that there will be spots for them and yet he won't spell out what that means in terms of who will give up designated spots to accommodate those senators (given that his senators control the selection committee). There has also been a move to ensure that senators who leave one of the designated groups can't retain their committee seats, that the allocation needs to remain with the group itself, apparently brought about by Woo's apoplexy when Senator David Richards kept his committee spot when he left the ISG in the last parliament.
All is not functioning as it should be in the Senate, and the fact that these kinds of negotiations are being aired in these kinds of open letters is a bad sign, especially since they are being used to call out Woo's public framing of events. I've had people from different caucuses all tell me that when Plett is the reasonable one in any debate, there is real trouble. And now, thanks to this state of affairs, the Senate won't be able to meaningful provide the oversight it should be during these unprecedented times. Trudeau's attempt to reform the Senate is failing, and the aphorism of the road to hell being paved with good intentions is playing out before our eyes.
Photo Credit: CBC News
