The debate about how the Senate should audit its members has been a live one since the height of the expenses scandal typified by the trial of Senator Mike Duffy.  In his report, the Auditor General was horrified by the notion that senators were judging senators and making up their own rules, and wanted to have a completely external audit committee that would oversee the expenses going forward.

As I've written about in this space several times, that kind of a suggestion should be a non-starter because Parliament is self-governing, and instituting an external body to do that kind of oversight is detrimental to that very notion.  That the Government Leader in the Senate err, "government representative," Senator Peter Harder, has signed onto this particular vision of accountability and tried to scour the length and breadth of other Westminster parliaments in order to prove his point ignoring the different constitutional or statutory frameworks and then going so far as to ensuring that his vision of an independent oversight body that wouldn't have binding authority, was a bit of a confused mess.  And that, unfortunately, is something that we've come to expect from Harder and his office, who still seem to be having a difficult time in grasping some of the finer intricacies of how the institution operates.

Where this debate has progressed is in at the Senate's internal economy committee, which is in the middle of changing up its leadership thanks to the recent round of committee shuffling that happened at the end of last week as the interim order to accommodate the new senators expired.  As part of this shake-up in order to rebalance committee representation and leadership to better represent the changed make-up of the Senate with so many independents now in the chamber, the Independent Senators Group (ISG) has been given control of the Senate's internal economy committee, with former Liberal Senator Larry Campbell now being given that chair.

As was reported in the Hill Times on Monday, the issue of the proposed Senate Committee on Audit and Oversight is one where the proposal going forward would have the five-member committee's membership be comprised entirely of senators, who would hire and direct an external auditor to review the expenses of senators and senate administration, with the reports being public and published.  The new committee would be separate from Internal Economy and report directly to the Chamber, while its membership would be barred from also sitting on the Internal Economy committee a laudable idea.

This goes entirely against the wishes of Auditor General Michael Ferguson and Senator Harder, and while much of what is proposed looks good on the surface, I nevertheless find myself a bit queasy by the fact that the proposed make-up of this committee is entirely internal to the Senate, without any outside membership.  The reason that's concerning is because it certainly makes it look like senators haven't entirely taken to heart the lessons of the expenses scandal, and that it looks a little too much like they are protecting their own interests.

It's why I think that the Senate has to rethink the proposed membership, and to go back to the idea floated by former ISG facilitator, Senator Elaine McCoy, back when the expenses scandal was raging.  McCoy looked to the House of Lords in the UK for their audit committee solution, which translated in to Canadian terms would see three senators on the five-member committee, while still retaining two external members to provide some of the oversight that the public demands.  McCoy's suggestion is that those external members include an auditor as well as a former judge who can help to adjudicate disputes that come up around expenses much like former Supreme Court of Canada Justice Ian Binnie continues to do for the Senate post-Auditor General's report.

Having three members out of five be Senators would be important it keeps control of the committee within Parliament, and ensures that it respects the self-governing nature of the institution.  That self-governing ability is important because it ensures that the Senate retains the ability to discipline its own members part of the privileges that the chamber enjoys under the constitution, and ensures the separation of powers between Parliament and the courts.  This is one of the reasons why a totally independent audit committee would be a problem constitutionally, since it would blur that separation of powers, making Parliament's ability to be self-governing a problem going forward.  (This issue is going to be a very big sticking point in the Commons as the Federal Court challenge regarding the NDP satellite offices goes ahead, as the decision MPs made to have their Board of Internal Economy be a statutory rather than parliamentary body could have a very real impact on their ability to claim parliamentary privilege and to maintain the separation of powers as the Court feels that it can weigh in on the Board's decisions).

Conservative Senator David Wells, the former chair of Internal Economy, favoured the five-senator model of the committee's make-up, but given the changing membership of the committee, the debate over the audit committee's make-up will happen in earnest.  This make-up will certainly be an optics problem because there will always be suggestions that its reports won't be credible.  Having external members of the committee will help to mitigate that appearance, especially if they are credible individuals like an auditor and a former judge.

As the ISG now takes over the chair committee and a greater proportional say as to what goes on, it will be up to them to weigh in and decide how they want the audit committee's make-up to go ahead.  One hopes that they won't be swayed by Harder's plans, which will damage the Senate going ahead, while one suspects that they will reject the Conservatives' proposal by virtue of their genesis a pattern that is emerging in how the Senate is operating these days.  This decision could very well have lasting repercussions for the Senate and Parliament itself, so let's hope they make the right, balanced choice of a mixed three-senator, two-external member committee.

You would think that the number of pundits reaching for their fainting couches on Wednesday night, when news spread that Governor General Julie Payette made supposedly derisive comments about climate deniers and creationists in a speech to a group of scientists that evening, that we were on the verge of a constitutional crisis.  "How dare she comment on things that are under debate?" came the aggrieved cries, as pearls were clutched.

One of the most aggravating parts of this whole incident is the refrain from my learned fellow pundits is that the country's vice-regal is supposed to be a "figurehead" who shall refrain from any and all statements that could possibly be construed as controversial.  She should, apparently, be a mannequin, or at most, an animatronic puppet who can deliver pre-packaged sentiments about how great Canada is, and something about maple leaves and puppies.  Which is completely wrong.

But first, Payette's comments.  Part of the problem is that they were reported over Twitter and elsewhere in text form, without seeing the tone in which they were delivered.  The inferences of tone came from the Canadian Press reporter who relayed them, and who didn't give the full context of what it was that Payette was saying.  And as with anything, context is what matters.

Yes, Payette was somewhat incredulous that there are houses of government in learned societies where climate denial is being discussed, and creationism.  But what seems to have escaped most of her critics is that these kinds of discussions are not happening in Canada, and that this was more likely a reference to our neighbours to the south.  Here, all mainstream parties have accepted that climate change is man-made and the policy differences are in how to deal with this.  Payette did not comment on those policies.  Likewise, creationism is not a public policy debate in Canada there are no provinces for whom it is mandated in their curriculum, unlike again, in the United States.  These are not live public policy issues in Canada, and are not partisan issues for which she should steer clear.  Likewise, I'm not aware of any parties who have taken a position that Canadians should live according to their horoscopes, or that placebos combined with wishing and hoping are acceptable medical practices.  These are not policy debates, and it's galling that mainstream pundits in Canada seem to be implying that they are.

The other part that the commentariat missed, if they bothered to watch the whole clip, is that Payette was bringing up the problems where misinformation is amplified by social media in a way that is largely unprecedented, and that is why there needs to be vigilance by the crowd of scientists that she was addressing.

"Democracy and society have always gained from learned debate, whether it is political, scientific, or economical, but we have to remain vigilant, and we cannot let ourselves fall into complacency," said Payette.  "We must to be vocal, all the time, everywhere, every single one of us, so that we can deconstruct misinformation and don't end up in an echo chamber where we just end up listening to what we want to hear."

I'm not sure what part of this is objectionable.  I don't think she was actually mocking religion given that creationism is a belief held by a narrow slice of mainstream religions, and there are many including mainstream Catholics for whom evolution is accepted fact.  (Some people are also pointing out that she represents the Queen, who is the head of the Church of England, forgetting that Payette represents the Queen of Canada, who is not head of said Church.  That title belongs to the Queen of the UK, and yes, that distinction matters).  Meanwhile, we seem to be proving her point by taking part of what she said out of context and then rattling it around the echo chamber of punditry so that we can have a chance to tut-tut at her and let her know that she's wrong.

It should also be noted that Justin Trudeau didn't help the situation when he was asked about the comments and he said that he was proud that she stood up for science, but neither did the media in trying to torque her actual message into some kind of scandal.  The appearance that Trudeau and Payette are a tag team is none too savoury for our system of government, but as with so many things these days, perception is being built by those who are trying to create sensation for the sake of driving clicks, and that's having a detrimental effect on democracy because it's amplifying the same kind of selective misinformation that Payette was calling on her listeners to deconstruct.

As for the calls that Payette guard her tongue in order to preserve her role as figurehead, that needs to be smacked down because the GG, like the Queen, is not a "figurehead."  They still have actual political powers that can be used, and in the GG's case in particular in Canada, is called upon to decide who gets to form a government.  Just months ago, we saw how vital this vice-regal role was after the fairly inconclusive results of the BC election, where that province's lieutenant governor had to make a call in the face of the howls of partisans and two-bit pundits who shouted demands at her in the face of the advice that she was receiving from the incumbent premier.

We appoint our vice-regal representatives because we have to be confident in their judgment, and that they will exercise their powers in a constitutionally appropriate manner, while making it clear that yes, they do have discretionary powers.  Payette is clearly someone for whom we have appointed for her accomplishments, and because we believe that she will have the good judgment in using those discretionary powers.  If we wanted to appoint a mannequin to the role who would simply smile, nod, and sign bills on request, then we wouldn't bother with finding exemplary individuals for the role, but settle for media darlings instead.  That's not the case, and we should stop pretending otherwise.

As the interim order to expand Senate committees expires on Tuesday, and new rules come into place around who can form a caucus in the Senate, there is a bit of a shakeup going on with how those committees are organizing themselves.  With the Independent Senators Group now firmly in the plurality in the Chamber, the demands that they start shouldering a greater responsibility on committees is ramping up.

Back in early December, the Senate groups came together and agreed to an interim order that would expand committees by an additional three members each in order to accommodate the arrival of new independent senators who otherwise wouldn't be allowed to take committee spots until the session expired via either a prorogation or the dissolution of Parliament for an election.  This order expires on October 31^st, which means that committees are set to return to their original sizes of either nine or twelve members, depending on the committee.

At the time of this writing, negotiations between the caucuses were still ongoing as to how they planned to return to those previous sizes, and what kind of distribution will be granted between the various caucuses (as the ISG will now officially be deemed a caucus with new rules changes that also come into effect at the same time).  And some of those negotiations have been testy, based on what I've heard from my sources.

One of the proposals floated had been for each caucus to eliminate one member from each committee, which would bring them back down to the original size, and with a distribution where the percentages roughly mirror those in the chamber.  That means that on a twelve-member committee, it would be five Independents, five Conservatives, and two Liberals; and on a nine-member committee it would be four-four-one.

What I've heard is that the ISG's leadership initially balked at this proposal, and demanded that they get half of the seats on committees because they wanted to include not only their current members, but also the future senators that have yet to be appointed (there are currently ten vacancies, and will soon be an eleventh as Conservative Senator Kelvin Ogilvie reaches his age of mandatory retirement next month), as well as those unaffiliated senators who haven't joined the ISG and that figure includes the three senators on the government representative team.  I will note that this particular demand doesn't make a lot of sense given that just two weeks ago, the ISG passed a rule that they have to approve of any new members by a 60 percent threshold, which would seem to indicate that they're not taking it for granted that all new senators would join their group automatically.  My understanding is that they eventually backed down from this demand, but the final disposition remains to be seen.

The fact that the ISG now has the plurality in the chamber cemented with by the fact that former Conservative Senators Stephen Greene and Josée Verner joined them, and on Monday, Liberal Senator Paul Massicotte left the caucus to join the ISG means that they are also looking to control the committees that have the real power in the Senate when it comes to operational matters internal economy, and likely the rules committee as well.  And this is where things will really start to get interesting, and partly why I suspect they were trying to ensure that they were afforded half of the seats on committees.

The fact that the Independents will start to control those fundamental committees means that they will get to start reshaping the Senate in their own image starting with getting an increased budget for their operations, but also with changing the Rules of the Senate in order to start shaping the modernization with an eye toward taking away any role that partisan caucuses play.  I haven't yet heard whether the ISG plans to take on the role of the opposition in the Senate given that there hasn't been an Official Opposition designation in the chamber to date given that it tended to only be constituted of two parties until recently and whether they would look to take over that suite of offices in the Centre Block dedicated to that role.

Suffice to say, I am curious to see how quickly they are looking to start flexing their muscles on those committees, whatever the final distribution may be.  I'm also curious to see how long it is before some of the partisan senators Senate Liberals especially start feeling bent out of shape over the demands of the ISG.  I will say that I am very worried that there will be a march toward marginalizing some of the very experienced voices in the Senate because they represent the "old way" of being appointed.  We've seen this kind of attitude already from Senator Peter Harder who made the remark on Power & Politics one night, and was forced to apologize to those partisan senators for impugning that they were of a lesser quality than those appointed by the new "merit-based" appointment process.

While yes, this is an exciting time in the Senate, and we are seeing a renewed vigour in the institution, I worry that there will be a desire to drive a lot of change very quickly without giving the institution time to adjust, which will cause an already stressed body even more strain.  While the new spirit of independence is all well and good, we can't be too quick to dismiss what has come before, and the role that partisan senators play both within the chamber from a Westminster perspective, as well as within their respective national caucuses (although this is now only the case for the Conservatives).  Too much independence in the Senate can be a dangerous thing, whether it's by making it easier to co-opt the "loose fish" model that many are looking for, or whether it's by empowering a group without a democratic mandate to move beyond the complimentary role of the Chamber.  How they reshape the committees will offer us clues as to what comes next.

This week, Samara Canada released a report titled "No One is Listening: Incivility in the 42^nd Parliament and How to Fix It."  As could be expected, it's full of terrible tales of just how awful heckling is, and how it's ruining our parliamentary democracy, and the likes.  But for as alarmist as the report is, it does actually make some needed recommendations.

The report is based on surveys with sitting MPs, and about a quarter of them responded, in demographics that roughly line up with the makeup of the current House of Commons. 53 percent said that heckling is a problem, while 16 percent find it beneficial.  Two-thirds admit to heckling themselves (but this number is likely under-reported especially among the Liberal ranks).  There are the usual concerns that they believe the public thinks badly of it.

More interestingly are some of the figures about why they heckle some 72 percent of MPs say that they do it to "correct a perceived untruth," while 15 percent feel that it increases accountability in the Commons.  At the same time, 36 percent see it as a form of harassment.  There is also a split between rookies and experienced MPs, where 60 percent of rookies feel that it's a problem, and half would like to see it abolished.  Among more experienced MPs, however, only 19 percent would like to see it abolished.

Additionally, the leadership role of parties on reducing heckling was also measured, with some 81 percent of Liberals having been formally advised by their party about heckling, 50 percent of New Democrats, and 22 percent of Conservatives.  This is fairly reflective of what I've observed in the Gallery on a daily basis, where the Liberals have been largely restrained but by no means silent along with having been banned from applause for the most part.  While the NDP made a big deal of civility and not heckling at the start of the 41^st parliament in 2011, that was broken on many an occasion, and they are far more vocal now than they ever have been and they do love their applause.  The Conservatives are consistently the most vocal, and the most cautioned by the Speaker for their behaviour.

I will laud the report for at least admitting that there is no golden age of civility in our politics.  "Disruption has always been a part of Parliament.  In the early years after Confederation, MPs meowed like cats, made music to drown out other Members, and (at least once) set off firecrackers in the House."  Nevertheless, memories are short, and while some veteran MPs did mention that it used to be worse and it really did, not that many years ago in the Harper era we are often regaled with the tales of rookies who feel harassed by such behaviour.

But this is where the context needs to come into the conversation, because when we talk about heckling, what we're really talking about is Question Period, which is 45 minutes out of a sitting day.  That's it.  The rest of the day, whether in the droning that passes for debate in the Chamber, or with the work on committees, it's really quite dull.  Crashingly dull in some cases, to the point of being on the verge of an outbreak of narcolepsy.  To say that heckling is a problem writ-large is not true, and I think it always must be qualified that we are talking about the one time of day when all MPs get together and perform a bit of political theatre.

And we need to reinforce is that this is theatre.  And as much as we worry about the public or the school children who occasionally pass through the galleries, we need to do a better job of explaining to Canadians about that fact that much of the disagreement and rancour is for show, that the vast majority of these MPs are very collegial, and friendships are forged across party lines all the time.  While part of this behaviour is about playing up for the cameras, much of it is sportsmanlike there is a definite spirit of showing support for your party in the questions they ask and answers that they deliver (though with the Liberal applause ban, that has abated on the answer side).  In fact, that air of team spirit is why both the Conservatives and NDP have refused to implement their own applause bans.

And I will note that yes, there are instances of personal of discriminatory remarks as part of the heckling, and those should be dealt with, but they tend to be a small proportion of the crosstalk.  I have rarely ever heard it personally, and I'm in the gallery every single day more than any MP or even the Speaker.  If it happens, it should be dealt with by the Speaker, party leadership or even peers.  But the vast majority of it is in response to prepared scripts that are being delivered, and beyond heckling being a grand parliamentary tradition (provided that it's witty we really, really do need to do better on that front), I do think it's a laudable goal to try and knock people from those scripts in an era of message control and pabulum masquerading as answers.

Which brings me to the recommendations in the report.  Most of them are useful and things that I have been recommending as ways to improve the way the House of Commons operates in general getting rid of speaking lists, giving more time for questions and answers, getting rid of the prepared scripts, and ensuring that the camera angles are not tightly focused on whoever is speaking, but rather getting reaction shots and wide shots in order to get a better sense of what goes on.  The one recommendation that I will flatly denounce, however, is the notion of changing up the seating configuration so that backbenchers are mixed around from all parties so as to break-up the sympathetic responses from teammates.

Ours is an oppositional system for a reason it enforces accountability, and creates clear delineations between the government and Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition.  The placement of government to the Speaker's right, and the head of the Mace pointing to the government, are deeply symbolic traditions that, even if you preserved the front benches for those reasons while mixing up the backbenches, you destroy the spirit of our system.  Our system is partisan.  We have parties for a very good and defined reason, and to try and break that up because of some squeamishness around heckling is fuzzy-headed logic that seeks to take the lifeblood out of what little excitement there is in politics.  Things have improved, and could probably improve a bit more, but the improvements we need are about the quality of crosstalk, and not to smother it entirely.

Photo Credit: Macleans