Liberal bills face a slog in Senate

Attention, Senate-watchers: It’s time to synchronize watches and get set for a whole new season of unpredictable upper House politics. As of 2 p.m. today, the most underrated chamber in Parliament will be back in business, although not (yet) operating at full legislative capacity.

When the curtain fell last June, there were 19 vacancies, a number that has increased by one over the summer due to the resignation of Independent Sen. Michel Rivard, and is expected to hit 21 by the end of the first day back on duty after Sen. Janis Johnson bids adieu.

Among the occupied seats, the rankings are as follows: 41 Conservatives, 21 Independent Liberals and 23 senators with no affiliation to any party.

For Sen. Peter Harder, who serves as the government’s official representative to the Senate, the good news is that the Conservatives no longer control a plurality of votes.

Beyond that, however, it’s anyone’s guess how much success he’ll have in shepherding Team Trudeau’s initiatives through the Senate in the days, weeks and months to come.

Not only is there no fixed deadline for filling the growing number of empty seats — beyond, that is, the “within weeks” timeline that he offered the Toronto Star earlier this month — but he can’t even depend on garnering the support of either his nonaligned colleagues or the Senate Liberals, as he found out during the wrangling over the proposed new laws on physician-assisted dying last June.

It’s worth noting that, at the moment, there are only two government bills on the Senate to-do list, but due to the subject matter, it’s distinctly unlikely that either will sail through the sober second thinking process without opposition.

First in the docket is C-6, which would reverse controversial changes to the citizenship rules initiated by the previous government toward the end of its tenure, most notably by striking a provision that allows the stripping of citizenship from dual nationals convicted of terrorism and related offences — or, as Harder’s office puts it, “repeal(ing) twotier citizenship.”

Passed by the House just before the summer recess, it’s currently in the queue to begin secondreading debate as early as Tuesday afternoon.

A more recent addition to the queue is C-2, which was introduced last December but only just made it through the House last week, and is meant to formally implement the new income tax formula brought in by the Liberals as part of the government’s much-self-touted “middle class tax cut.”

A spokeswoman for Senate Conservative Leader Claude Carignan confirmed that the Tory caucus intends to take a good, long look at the proposed tax changes.

“You can expect our caucus members to scrutinize C-2’s real impact on Canadian families, the economy — including an ongoing study on the impact of infrastructure spending — and public finances in general,” Jenn Gearey told the Citizen.

As for the rollback of the citizenship revocation provisions, she confirmed that C-4 “will be carefully examined regarding fairness of the system and security of Canadians.”

Meanwhile, there’s also C-4, which rolls back the previous government’s move to force unions to disclose detailed financial information.

While still in the Commons, it’s expected to wrap up third reading by mid-week, at which point it, too, will be dispatched to the upper house for further consideration.

And while it may not be a government bill, Harder will likely also want to keep a close eye on the late Mauril Bélanger’s bid to rejig the lyrics of O Canada to make the anthem gender neutral, which is also in line for secondreading debate thanks to Conservative Sen. Nancy Ruth, who has taken up the cause in the upper house.

But as it isn’t officially government business, there’s no guarantee as to exactly when the debate will resume — or, for that matter, when the bill will be put to a critical vote, which will either send it off to committee or kill it on the spot.

There are also two Senate public bills working their ways through the chamber that could eventually cause the government — and, by extension, Harder — grief: Sen. Bob Runciman’s proposal to “expand the grounds for the justification of detention in custody” and Sen. Wilfred Moore’s plan to appoint an inspector general to oversee the activities of the Canadian Border Services Agency.

MPs are also slated to review Senate amendments to C-7, which would expand on the government’s initial proposal to allow collective bargaining within the RCMP.

So far, it hasn’t been re-called for debate, but eventually, it will — and if the House chooses to reject the proposed changes, it, too, could make a return appearance on the Senate agenda.

Finally, senators on both sides of the aisle will likely be keen to resume the weekly ministerial question-and-answer sessions, as well as the ongoing discussions over how the Senate itself may have to change to deal with the rising number of party-independent members.

Harder is set to share his latest thoughts on the subject during an appearance before the Senate modernization committee on Wednesday.