Conservatives could rule upper house for 20-30 years
Situation would change, however, with passage of Harper’s Senate Reform Act
OTTAWA – Unless Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Senate reform plans succeed, New Democrats and Liberals could be in for a decade – maybe even two – of Conservative rule in the Senate.
A Postmedia News analysis of the current retirement dates for the country’s senators suggests the NDP would have to win, at minimum, two consecutive election victories to end Conservative dominance of the Senate. The same is true for the Liberals.
Postmedia’s projections also rest on the assumption that if the NDP formed government, the party would appoint New Democrats to the Senate.
But an NDP spokesperson said on Friday that the party would not comment on hypothetical scenarios.
Should the New Democratic Party form a majority in 2015 – when the next federal election is scheduled – the analysis suggests it would take seven years to appoint enough NDP senators to overtake the Tories.
This would require winning two consecutive elections at least four years apart, starting with that 2015 ballot. And it would require that whenever a senator retired, the NDP would fill the vacancy, appointing an NDP supporter.
Should the NDP not unseat the Tories until 2019, it would take election wins through to 2034 for the New Democrats to accumulate enough Senate seats from retiring Conservatives and Liberals to wrest control of the upper chamber.
The NDP’s position on the Senate, however, is that the upper chamber should be abolished.
So it could simply not appoint any senators at all, and let vacancies remain unfilled. But those vacancies would have to pile up for about 30 years before the Senate suffered from a lack of quorum.
If the Liberals were to win a majority in 2015, they could take as little as five years to recapture the Senate.
If they did not unseat the Tories until 2019, it would take them 10 years beyond that.
The projections are based on the state of today’s Senate, where appointments are made by the prime minister and senators do not need to retire until age 75.
These rules could change, should the government pass the Senate Reform Act. The bill would create a voluntary framework for provincial elections for senators and impose nine-year term limits on anyone appointed since October 2008.
Changing the face of the Senate, even when power shifts in the House of Commons, is not easy.
It took four years after he was elected in 2006 before Harper gained control from the Liberals. That’s also how long it took Jean Chrétien to do the same after becoming prime minister in 1993.
Brian Mulroney had to wait six years before he gained control of the Senate.
In fact, Mulroney might have had to wait an additional year had he not become the only prime minister to use a clause in the constitution that gives the government powers to appoint senators without a vacancy.
After receiving the queen’s approval to invoke Section 26 of the Constitution Act, Mulroney appointed eight Tory senators in late September 1990 in order to pass the goods and services tax through the upper house. Section 26 required that the next eight senators to retire would not be replaced.
Harper could add to his majority in the Senate this year. There are four vacant seats, with five more senators set to retire before the end of 2012.
Should he continue his tradition of appointing Conservatives, he could bring his party’s numbers in the 105-seat chamber to as high as 63.
If he were to win the 2015 election and continue appointing Tories, he could swell the Conservative benches in the Senate to as many as 82 members before 2019.
The Senate Reform Act has not budged on the parliamentary agenda since January. A Harper spokesperson said this week the government remains committed to the bill, but wouldn’t say when the prime minister hopes to see it passed.