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Posts Tagged ‘Canadian Senate’

Following through with what his spokesperson indicated at the time of the prorogation of parliament,  Prime Minister Harper made five new appointments to the Senate this past Friday, bringing the Conservative Party to a total of 51 seats in the 105 member body. While that number does not represent an outright majority, holding a plurality in the chamber (much as the Conservatives do in the House) will manifest itself with a larger Conservative presence on reconstituted committees once parliament reconvenes, as well as greater sway of Senate’s agenda. Kady O’Malley has a nice rundown on each of the new senators here at the CBC’s Inside Politics blog.

Wasting no time in indicating how this new found power in the upper chamber will be wielded, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson held a press conference on Friday with two of the new senators. Much as they have since first forming a minority government in 2006, it appears the Conservatives will ride the perennially popular stance of being “tough on crime” as much as possible; all 5 new appointees shared the ‘tough’ credential, while Minister Nicholson made sure to colour the Opposition with dread “soft on crime” label. The minister even went so far as to imply that opposition parties, especially Liberal members of the senate, were actively preventing the administration of justice. The Globe and Mail was quick to note that:

In fact, of the 17 crime bills introduced by the federal Conservative government in the last session, only two were held up in the Senate for more than six months. Most died on the order paper when Mr. Harper prorogued Parliament in late December.

As a campaign stance, being “tough on crime” is one of the oldest plays in the book as it is a virtually an unassailable position; who could be said to be against improvements in public safety? But what does getting “tough” mean from a governing standpoint? So far, it seems to consist of widening the scope of, as well as lengthening mandatory minimum sentences. Much of the governments introduced crime legislation on this front has been amended through debate in the House (funny how a minority government will do that.) As has been noted by many others, this does not sit will with Mr. Harper. With the new arrangement of the Senate and most of the uncompleted work of Parliament ‘dying on the docket’ when it was prorogued, some bills are set to be reintroduced in the Senate in their original language when parliament reconvenes. With so much attention being heeded crime and public safety, it is worth taking a moment to take a look at crime levels as they currently stand in Canada:

From the ‘The Daily‘, a regular feature of the Stats Can webpage, here is the overall police reported crime rate, as well as the Crime Severity Index:

Declining Crime Rate: 1998-2008

And from the Juristat report ‘Homicide in Canada 2008′, the homicide rate per 100, 000 people from 1961-2008:

Canadian homicide rate: 1961-2008

• Oh Yeah, That Whole Senate Thing [/caption] In my haste to post on the prorogation of parliament, I completely forgot to mention one of the more tangible reasons for Mr. Harper to do so; Senate appointments. As I understand it, (mostly...
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That’s what Justin Beach is suggesting over at his blog. Justin is a great writer who also happens to run a fantastic Canadian Music News blog, North by East West; I don’t know where he finds the time (NxEW does have a great pan-Canadian team). Justin doesn’t just provide insight and analysis in his postings, he’s usually also contributing ideas on actual ways to enact change. Just the other day he was noting that that Canadians are clearly frustrated with the continual tactical leveraging from Prime Minister Harper, and states:

[...]this seriously begs for electoral reform and Parliamentary reform. The current system is totally and completely broken and there is no sign that there will be another majority Government of any stripe for the foreseeable future and it comes at the worst possible time.

We have serious problems to fix.

As I’ve noted before I also believe that Parliamentary reform is in order, both for the House and Senate. Electoral reform should be a natural partner to that as well. That prompted me to ask in comments “Are there any functional tools that Canadians can employ to attempt to undertake some electoral and Parliamentary reform? Can these things only originate from the House itself?” Today Justin has a post up that begins to answer that oh so important question, what can be done?

[...]the broken Parliament has been an ongoing issue for me and many others. It’s not just the proroguing of Parliament. That’s just the most recent symptom of an ongoing disease. The uniting of the right combined with the fragmenting of everyone else (and Liberal infighting) have allowed 30% of the population to run the country.

There has been talk in the past about ‘uniting the left’ but that’s easier said than done [...] what about the Liberals and the Greens?

[...]the Liberals have ‘the establishment’. They have infrastructure, money and names (and a party logo) that Canadians know [...]What the Liberals do not have is ideas.

[...]The Greens do not have ‘establishment’. Other than Elizabeth May people at large don’t know who they are [...] What they do have is street cred and ideas, lots of ideas. (see GreenParty.ca for examples.)

[...]In the last election the Liberals and the Greens did work together to a small extent. The Liberals did not run a candidate in Elizabeth May’s home riding and at one point and Elizabeth May at one point urged strategic voting to defeat the Conservatives. She also supported the idea of a Liberal/NDP coalition – so I think it’s safe to say that the door is open if Ignatieff has the courage to walk through it.

I like the idea on the merits, but am skeptical about the viability of this coming together; I suspect the Liberals will be inclined to stay in a holding pattern, railing against the Government when they can, holding off an election as long as possible and hope that circumstances such as bigger and continuing budgetary deficits eventually change electoral fortunes back to at least a Liberal Minority. I can appreciate where Liberals would take a stance like this from a strategic standpoint, but I do not respect it. Ideas being floated by people like Justin is at least a start on some change; we as a nation most certainly need it.

• The Post In Which I Hedge Against My Previous One [/caption] On Friday I wrote the following: [...] socially conservative, right wing political factions in the US have truly earned the label 'noise-machine'. Social conservatives in the States are vocal, well organized, well funded and...
• The New Shape And Direction Of The Canadian Senate Following through with what his spokesperson indicated at the time of the prorogation of parliament,  Prime Minister Harper made five new appointments to the Senate this past Friday, bringing the Conservative Party to a total...

• Stephen Harper Meets the Beatles Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper appeared at the National Arts Centre gala a couple of days ago. His appearance was surprising for a couple of...
• A simple Tax Forward Turns into an E-Mail Battle! I don't usually pass on forwards, but I loved this one! It actually caused an uproar between me and my wife's aunt, who I don't...

Senate Chamber, Centre Block, Parliament Hill, Ottawa, Canada (photo by Montrealais, used under Creative Commons Attribution and ShareAlike license)

In my haste to post on the prorogation of parliament, I completely forgot to mention one of the more tangible reasons for Mr. Harper to do so; Senate appointments. As I understand it, (mostly by way of Kady O’Malley) with parliament not in session, the Prime Minister will be able to appoint at least 5 new senators and possibly as many as 13 depending on his willingness to get out the old parliamentary playbook again. Five new Conservative senators would give them a plurality in the upper house (did you know that there are still 2 PC Senators?) along with more bargaining power on the allotment of Senate committee seats. If Harper invokes Section 26 of the Constitution Act (only previously successfully done by Brian Mulroney to allow passage of the bill that created the GST) then he could appoint 8 additional Senators to the 5 seats that are currently unoccupied, thus giving the Conservative Party an outright majority with 59 seats out of a total of 113 (there are 105 ‘regular’ seats with Section 26 allowing the temporary addition of 8 Senators, with attrition then being in effect until the Senate returns to the ‘normal’ level of 105 seats through retirements.)

This benefit is by far the most likely prize for the PM; shutting down the House to continued criticism on the handling of the transfer of  Afghan detainees and delivering a budget clean of opposition injections when Parliament reopens are ancillary bonuses to being able to get legislation that has cleared the House through the Senate unmarred by those lefty Liberals and NDP’ers (don’t forget the rump PC’ers!)

This puts me in an interesting position; while I don’t agree with the means that Harper is using, I can sympathize with the ends he is trying to reach. As one who spends far too much time enveloped in US politics, I have developed a healthy fear of an overly powerful Senate. Now obviously the two bodies are very different but as time goes by it increasingly seems that the Canadian Senate is also becoming a place for legislation passed by our elected representatives to go to die. My wikipedia tells me that “[...]as a matter of practice and custom, the Commons is by far the dominant chamber. Although the approval of both houses is necessary for legislation, the Senate rarely rejects bills passed by the directly elected Commons.” I need to do some more looking to qualify my feeling that the qualifier ‘rarely’ is becoming less appropriate as time goes by, but I certainly do feel that is the case. If any readers have info that supports or refutes that feeling it would be much appreciated. In my own humble (am I allowed to add considered?) opinion, Senate reform is something both the US and Canada need (the US much more so than Canada, but why shouldn’t we get ahead of a growing problem ourselves?)

• Canadians Against Prorogation: Vancouver Edition [/caption] January 23rd, 2010 saw thousands of people of all political stripes (as well as those lacking any stripes) from across the country come together in peaceful protest to demonstrate their displeasure with Prime Minister...
• Supreme Court Holds Off From Setting New Precedent, For Now [/caption] Friday was an extremely busy day and things did not all go Stephen Harper's way. The Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, held in part an appeal brought forth by the Prime Minister in...

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