Refashioned Senate battle rages even as fresh fish arrive

Tories zero in on middle-class tax cut

The supposedly postpartisan Senate inaugurated by Justin Trudeau’s appointment of independent senators has gotten off to an unpromising start.

No sooner had the new senators started arriving in the Red Chamber than one of the most intensely partisan spats of recent times broke out. The Conservative caucus decided to stop tinkering with marginal legislation and go for broke by amending the foundational bill on which the whole Liberal legislative agenda is balanced — the middle-class tax cut.

At t he Senate f i nance committee this week, the Tories successfully amended the Income Tax Act, introducing two new tax- rates for those earning between $45,000 and $90,563.

Larry Smith, the Conservative senator chairing the committee, argued that the measure would in fact be revenue neutral, claiming that it fixed a poorly drafted bill.

But Peter Harder, t he government leader in the Senate, raised a point of order, saying that the amendment would increase taxes for higher earners and that the Speaker of the Senate should thus rule it out- oforder, on the procedural grounds that according to the Constitution Act revenue- raising measures can only originate in the House of Commons.

It was a convoluted bit of political theatre and will likely prove anticlimactic — rather than forcing the Liberals to rewrite their budget, the amendment will probably die a quiet death on the floor of the Senate.

But it was instructive because it confirmed that, for now, the adversarial cutand- thrust of the Westminster system will prevail in Canada’s upper house.

Forty- four of the 105 current senators are independents ( though not all have taken their seats yet). A further 21 will arrive in the next three years, as more party-affiliated members retire and are replaced. “This is an institution in evolution,” Harder said i n an interview.

But t he Conservatives have given notice that they will rage against the dying of the partisan light and will not go quietly into the new era.

Claude Carignan, t he leader of the opposition in the Senate, said when Stephen Harper asked him t o become a senator he agreed because he wanted to change the Red Chamber. But, he said, the Senate cannot become “a big advisory committee.”

“I think we need to have a Westminster system and we need to have an official opposition. I have no problem with non- affiliated senators but we have a government leader in the Senate, so we also need an opposition side,” he said.

This is causing headaches f or Harder, who is concerned about the backlog of government legislation that is building in the Senate, including the income tax act, the citizenship act and the labour relations act.

Harder said he is prepared to invoke closure or have the Senate come back from its winter break early and sit in January, if the legislation doesn’t start to flow.

Carignan said any suggestion that the Conservatives are deliberately slowing the passage of legislation is a “joke,” and blamed Harder for being too focused on the modernization of the Senate at the expense of passing bills.

“He’s just woken up and now he’s panicking,” he said. “He gave me a wish- list for Christmas — t hree bills ( dealing with the Canada Pension Plan, the Canada-EU economic trade agreement and the budget) — but all three are still in the House of Commons.”

While this political soap opera is playing out, new senators are arriving by the day. They are for the most part wallflowers at the orgy, as the government leader, the Senate Liberals and the Conservatives dance their strange minuet.

But there are signs that t he old place is s l owly changing. When the partisans huddle for their caucuses, around 20 of the independents now meet as the Independent Senate Group.

The ISG has attempted to forge a consensus on how t he Senate should operate. “If we can arrive at a consensus, you might see a number of us vote together,” said Frances Lankin, the former president of United Way and a former Ontario NDP MPP who arrived in the Senate last spring. But, she said, the ISG is not designed to arrive at a common point of view on legislation or imitate the role of a traditional partisan caucus.

This formation is at least focusing the minds of the partisans who dominate the Senate financially and organizationally.

The income- tax amendment passed because the Conservatives dominate the finance committee, with numbers out of proportion with the size of their caucus in the Senate.

Harder said an agreement is close on proportionality — which, roughly speaking, will see the Conservatives and independents get 40 per cent of the seats on any committee, with the Liberals taking the remaining 20 per cent. Carignan said he’s not against the idea.

But while it’s clear that the more sober, deliberative model favoured by Harder is taking shape, it is also apparent that the old confrontational ways will dominate for some time yet.

For the government representative in the Senate, even the growing power of independents does not guarantee an easy life.

As André Pratte, the former editor- in- chief of La Presse, said: “I have ideas and I have expressed those i deas throughout my career. I consider myself an independent, and the government will not tell me how to vote.”