Independents reforming Senate by stealth
These days, it’s proportional representation that most Canadians, especially British Columbians, think about if they think about democratic reform at all.
There’s the provincial referendum and before that the federal Liberals briefly toyed with getting rid of first-past-the-post before jettisoning the idea.
Yet, three decades ago, Senate reform was such a hot topic that it fuelled Western separatism and eventually was a factor in dividing the conservative movement.
Nobody talks much anymore about the unelected body and how its representation is so wildly out of sync with the population that both Newfoundland and Labrador (population 526,000) and British Columbia (population 4.75 million) have six senators.
The massive overhaul of the Senate into an elected, effective and equal body proposed by the Reform Party was always an empty, populist promise.
It did yield one elected senator after Alberta held a vote in 1989 and, fearing Reform’s growing popularity, Progressive Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney appointed Stanley Waters the next year. Canada’s first, last and only senator to have been elected served little more than a year. He died in 1991 from complications related to a brain tumour.
But everybody, including Reform founder Preston Manning, knew it could only be accomplished by changing the Constitution and there was no way then or now that was going to happen because it risks having to reopen talks with Quebec.
That has left incremental change as the only possibility to turn the Red Chamber into something less of an embarrassment and vestigial drain on the public purse.
Despite his roots in the Reform Party, Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper made only one attempt at retooling. He had his appointees sign a pledge that they would retire after eight years. Only one of them — New Brunswick’s John Wallace — honoured the promise.
But Harper left the door open for change with 22 seats vacant when his government was defeated.
While it seemed a bit crazy and more of a political stunt than a plan, Justin Trudeau almost immediately kicked Liberal senators out of the government caucus and told them to be independent. He quickly filled the 22 vacancies and 23 subsequent vacancies using a new process.
Senators now apply and are vetted by an independent advisory board comprised of three federal members and two members from each of the provinces.
These new senators sit as Independents, unaffiliated with any party. Now, the 54-member Independent Senators’ Group led by B.C. Senator Yuen Pau Woo is the majority.
The Senate still lacks the independent financial oversight recommended three years ago by the auditor general. But among the changes the Independents have instituted is having a quarterly report on office, living, hospitality and travel expenditures posted online.
For those old enough to recall stories about the odd senator lolling on a tropical beach while the legislative session was on, that’s not likely to happen now that attendance at the $142,000-a-year job is now also posted online.
How effective all of this is remains to be seen, although the appointment process has yielded some obvious results. It’s less of an old boys’ club. Now, 45 per cent of the senators are women (26 of the 46 women have been appointed in the last two years) and there are 11 Indigenous senators (eight are recent appointments).
But one important, and potentially troubling, difference is that the Independent senators have been emboldened. In the past two years, one of every four government bills has been amended.
The Senate has recommended substantial amendments to controversial legislation including
the bill on medically assisted dying and the Indian Act amendments ending gender discrimination.
Soon, 105 senators — and remember, only six are from B.C. — will be discussing the bill that would ban oil tanker traffic in northern British Columbia.
Is this sober, second thought? Or is it activism?
“We are a revising body, not a defeating one,” Peter Harder, the government’s representative in the Senate, said recently. “We haven’t insisted if the House of Commons doesn’t agree.”
He defends the more active role reflects the “robust bicameralism” envisaged in the Constitution, saying Independent senators debate ideas and propose changes rather than defend partisan positions.
Of course, the Senate’s work is not confined to studying and amending bills. It also has the power to initiate bills, hold hearings on important issues of its choosing and make recommendations to the government that flow from its findings.
“We’re on the cusp of entrenching institutional reform,” Harder said.
He noted if all ISG members serve their full term to age 75, that majority will hold for close to eight years.
And, if the Liberals win the next election and continue appointing Independents, Harder said the majority is guaranteed for the next 20 years.
There’s no argument that making senators’ spending and attendance more transparent is a good thing.
Still, it remains to be seen whether emboldening an unelected and unrepresentative body to “improve” legislation is really what Canadians had in mind for Senate reform.