Tory senators stalling laws for political edge, Independents say

OTTAWA — Conservative senators are being accused of deliberately stalling Liberal government legislation to keep it in the public eye for political benefit.

That’s particularly true of

Bill C-69, new rules for environmental assessments of energy projects, which has drawn the wrath of Alberta, Saskatchewan and other provincial governments that fear it will scare off investment in projects like pipelines by setting up too many regulatory hurdles.

“This is a bill that could generate a lot of political attention, and it is in the interests of some senators to use the bill as political hay,” Sen. Yuen Pau Woo, leader of the Independent Senators’ Group, said in an interview.

The argument over getting bills through the Senate broke into the open in the red chamber Thursday, just hours before MPs and senators ended their last sitting in Parliament’s iconic Centre Block for at least 10 years.

Both chambers were slated to resume work on Jan. 28, housed in temporary new quarters while Centre Block undergoes a massive restoration.

But senators agreed Thursday to delay until Feb. 19 the move into their new home in Ottawa’s old railway station, giving workers time to fix a ceiling gap that was causing “disruptive noise levels” so bad that they would affect the Senate’s operations, including plans to provide, for the first time, live broadcasts of Senate proceedings.

Senate staff didn’t detect the design problem until they started running practice sessions to prepare for senators’ arrival.