The general theory of Senate relativity
By now, we’ve all accepted Einstein’ s brilliant illuminations about the nature of time and space. We are comfortable with the idea that time is not an absolute; that its passage varies according to physical circumstances.
For example, a person in a spaceship travelling near the speed of light, or a person who is watching a Peter Jackson film, will experience time much more slowly than an outside observer. People back on Earth, or people outside the theatre showing King Kong, will experience time passing much more cordially than the guy in the ship, or the guy condemned to one of Jackson’ s rendition sofa J. R. R. Tolkien novel. In the case of The Hobbit, in fact, there is a theory, which posits that in certain parts of that film — during the dwarfs’ early singalong, for example — time stops completely.
I bring this up to call to mind the Mike Duffy trial. Though mere months have passed since the conclusion of this epic trial, it now seems, in the sunburst freshness of a new government, to have taken place in another time altogether. Can it be that the examination of a single senator’s expense accounts held our attention for nearly two years; that we as a nation spent months obsessing over his travel receipts and engaging in philosophical arguments over where one calls home? The answer is, of course, that yes, yes, we did.
If we take into account the actual amount of time spent on that one senator’s conduct, and the various resources of the state used in its investigations into it, and note as well the vast resources journalists devoted to minute coverage of its every velleity, then obviously it means that this was very serious business indeed. A mature state does not devote its energies to trivia, and surely we in the press don’t stretch things out just for the hell of it. We can thus conclude that the Senate is a very important place; that it is in fact one of the three central institutions in our system of government — the House of Commons and the Supreme Court of Canada being the others — and that, since it is such an important body, even the behaviour of a single senator is worth the extreme scruple by both the law and the press.
Let’s assume it’s OK to “fast forward” at this point ( time being the slippery agent that it is) and note that we have seen in the last few months a much greater, more substantial set of developments i nvolving our sublime upper chamber — many of which have gone largely unnoticed. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s team assembled a committee tasked with surveying t he l and and plucking a few select Canadians worthy of elevation to the highest altitude of our government. But how much time was dedicated to the selection of those who get to select?
It can be easily argued that those who select senators, or at the very least those who get to place the names in front of the prime minister, are, in fact, more important than the sen- ators themselves. This committee determines, or has immense influence on, the composition ( eventually) of the entire Senate. So, according to the principles of democratic oversight, surely we should have had a deeper and more intense discussion of who gets to sit in it, than the conduct of any particular senator — either before the change or after it?
We have seen an equal brevity in the manner of former justice Ian Binnie’s report on the expense scandal. A whole bag of senators, 30 of them, were investigated by the Mounties; the public has been told that 24 of them will not be charged, and the other six are “not likely” to be charged. Considering all the scrutiny of Duffy, why has this matter been treated so glancingly? What differentiates the other cases from the one we have spent so much time on?
Indeed, when it comes to the Red Chamber, so many questions remain unanswered. Why and how were the recently appointed senators picked? What does it mean when the government says they will be “independent”? What is the actual force of the Senate selection committee’s recommendations to the prime minister? Why have the amounts owing from improper expenses, as determined by the auditor general, been cut in half ?
I can think of no reason why these questions go begging for answers than pure relativity. The Senate existed in a different time and place before the recent election. Before the election, it was of the highest consequence that the microscope of public scrutiny examine every jot and tittle of one member’s doings, lest the body itself should suffer. But after the election, wholesale changes to its very structure — who gets appointed, the selection of those who get to select and the status of senators once they are appointed — are seen as insignificant adjustments.
Things change with time. Before the election, the Mike Duffy affair was a crisis of the state. After the election, wholesale changes to the body got made between trips to Paris and Washington. Relativity is the way we live now.
WHY WAS SO MUCH ATTENTION PAID TO THE CONDUCT OF MIKE DUFFY, AND SO LITTLE TO THE WHOLESALE CHANGES TRUDEAU IS MAKING TO THE UPPER CHAMBER?