Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appointed his 81st senator this week. Trudeau is another independent senator in a transformed Senate who has vowed to make his party less partisan.
The effort began more than a decade ago when Prime Minister Trudeau gathered his Liberal senatorial colleagues in Ottawa.
“Mr. Trudeau was sitting with all the Liberal senators, but no MPs,” said James Cowan, leader of the Senate Liberal caucus in January 2014. the former Nova Scotia senator said on CBC Radio’s show. the house For the interview broadcast on Saturday.
“He then stated that a decision had been made that Liberal senators would no longer be members of the national caucus,” Mr Cowan said.
The announcement shocked senators and the broader federal political community. Senate reform was a hot topic at the time, and the impetus was expense scandal and competing proposals for change. The NDP had called for the abolition of the upper house, while the ruling Conservative Party had called for an elected upper house.
10:11Prime Minister Trudeau’s big impact on the red chamber
It’s been 10 years since Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau shocked Ottawa by expelling senators from the Liberal caucus and having them sit as independents. Now, after he appointed a near-record 81 senators, has the system really changed? CBC’s Christian Perslang speaks with senators and Senate watchers to find out.
”[The Liberals] Jane Cody, then a Liberal senator from Nova Scotia, now heads the Progressive Senators Group and is the longest-serving member of the Red House.
“And I guess, [Trudeau’s] From his perspective, he was about to make a dramatic change. ”
“Several [Liberal senators] Some were very angry, some were very happy, and I think most of us were just in a state of shock,” Cody said of the January 2014 meeting.
Conservatives at the time, including Democratic Reform Minister Pierre Poièvre, dismissed the move as a meaningless rebranding. However, this ended up being the first of his two important steps in Senate reform.
The new majority Liberal government introduced its own appointment process shortly after winning the 2015 election. The goal was to end a partisan Senate, Trudeau said.
Currently, 81 senators, almost three-quarters of the current chamber, have been appointed under the reform process, with only a dwindling Conservative bloc remaining overtly partisan in the chamber. It becomes.
“One of the things that happened as a result of that was [reforms] Paul Thomas, a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Manitoba who has studied the Senate, disagrees with the original motivations for Senate reform, but he argues that the culture of the Senate has changed. It worked better than most people thought), and there were some positive results from the new climate of nonpartisanship.
“Overall, I think the new Senate is better than the old Senate in terms of being a constructive presence in the national governance process,” he said.
The new Senate, made up of individuals rather than political parties, made the legislative process more confusing and difficult, but it had its benefits, he said.
“It’s not a bad thing that we have to work harder to prove that there is a consensus to support major controversial legislation in Canada,” he said.
conservative criticism
The new Senate had to deal with controversial and divisive issues, from medical assistance in death to carbon tax exemptions. The vote on amendment C-234, which would exempt some agricultural activities from the carbon tax, split various new groups in the Senate. This is another sign that the Senate is becoming more independent.
Although the Conservative Party is currently in the minority in parliament, it has continued to be a consistent critic of the new system.
“I’ve often called out this fake independent Senate of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau because I really don’t think this is Senate reform at all. Many Canadians, including myself, have never seen real Senate reform. But this is not the case,” said Conservative Senator Dennis Batters of Saskatchewan.
He said Senate reforms did not result in better policies, but rather a more expensive and chaotic process.
He argued that the independent advisory committee that recommends Senate candidates is heavily influenced by the Prime Minister’s Office.of board is made up of federal and local appointments, with many local seats currently vacant. Batters said Senate candidates tend to be liberal-friendly.
“Many of the other senators who were appointed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, I wouldn’t call them independent,” she said.
Thomas said it’s not accurate to say all the candidates are “liberal hacks” or benefactor appointments.
He said: “If the Conservative Party is on stronger footing, you could say that the appointments are generally more liberal – small ‘L’ Liberal – thinking.”
“Are they representative of all public opinion in Canada? They’re not.”
“It’s very important to remove taxes from our lives.” [food] On Thursday, Ontario Conservative MP Michael Barrett announced that Power & told Politics. The Senate will not resume consideration of Bill C-234 until after the Remembrance Day recess.
Will it last?
Prime Minister Trudeau’s appointment reorganized the Senate, but polls show the Liberals are on track to lose the next election to the Conservatives, raising questions about whether the changes will be permanent. It is occurring.
“Liberals are going to say there’s no going back, we’re never going to have a partisan Senate again, people are going to be so upset that the Senate is going to become a patronage house again,” Thomas said.
But some believe the Red House would have worked better as a more standard Westminster institution, with a clear government and opposition.
“I felt then, and I still feel this way, that how do you make a Westminster-type parliamentary democracy work properly when you have that model in one house and a completely different model in another house where everyone is an individual? “We’re finding it difficult to understand how we can make it work,” Cowan said. .
Batters agreed, saying it was important to have a strong opposition in the Senate.
“Some of the senators appointed by Prime Minister Trudeau have said this should be more like a think tank, a council of elders or something. I don’t think that’s appropriate. ” she said.
Cody said it is difficult to know whether the current Senate system will survive under the new administration.
“I think we’ll have to wait and see what happens over the next 10 years,” she said. She said she did not know whether there would be an independent opposition in a future upper house or whether some independent senators might join the Conservative side.
“Those are all questions I can’t answer,” she said. “Those are all scenarios that some of us wonder about…and we’ll only know when it happens.”
