THE MAN TASKED WITH CLEANING UP THE SENATE’S IMAGE
Riddle me this: when is the government house leader in the Senate, not the government house leader in the Senate? When he’s the government’s Senate representative, of course.
Peter Harder, a career public servant and the man who led the transition team that ushered in the Liberal government, is Justin Trudeau’s point man in the Senate.
He was recently appointed to the Red Chamber as one of the seven “independent” senators and will act as the de jure government leader in the upper house, as the newly fashioned “government Senate representative.”
He has no caucus. He currently rattles around in the government leader’s grand offices on Parliament Hill with one member of staff.
His task is to rehabilitate the Senate in the eyes of Canadians, so that it is no longer the punchline in jokes about hornswogglers and snollygosters.
As if the challenge were not herculean enough, the Mike Duffy verdict will be delivered later this week, and irrespective of the senator’s guilt or otherwise, it will remind many people why they would prefer the Red Chamber to be turned into a gift shop.
Harder’s first order of business is to secure himself a budget to staff his office.
He is seeking $850,000 to hire nine staff — the same number as his predecessor, Conservative, Claude Carignan. But the purse strings are held by the Tory-dominated internal economy committee and it is not minded to be generous.
“Progress is being made (in reducing partisanship) but my only comment is office budgets ought not to be the gift of the leaders of partisan caucuses,” he said.
According to the formula in place, budget allocation rises with the number of caucus members, which puts the newly appointed independent senators at a disadvantage.
Harder said those rules will change over time. “But I’m saying this is a process. It won’t happen by Thursday. … I do believe that, paradoxically, we’ll have more influence if we are less partisan. We are not the House of Commons. If you want partisanship, walk down the hall.”
He said his allies in the struggle to modernize the Senate will be “transparency, civility and time.”
During the course of this parliament, there are scheduled to be 41 senatorial appointments; by December, the independent senators will outnumber the Senate Liberals and by the end of next year they will exceed the Conservatives (there are currently 42 Tories, 25 Liberals, 21 independents and 17 vacancies.)
“Hopefully, in that evolution, this institution can regain respect from, and earn the respect of, the Canadian public. We have a legitimate institution of government and an opportunity collectively to work together to demonstrate that,” he said.
That is the longer-term vision. Job one will be to get his veteran colleagues to accept this new role.
Harder claims he “does not come as a member of a party caucus,” even though his job will be to defend the government’s policies in the Senate.
He says he was appointed by an arm’s-length process, after having been nominated by the Institute of Research in Public Policy think-tank.
He admits he is in a “unique and unprecedented position” but points out he was a Progressive Conservative political staffer, before working as a public servant for all prime ministers from Brian Mulroney through to Stephen Harper.
“I viewed service as a deputy minister as supporting the government of Canada and that’s the spirit I will bring to this role — a spirit of public service and professionalism.”
That is unlikely to wash with many Conservative senators. And Harder may find he has just as much trouble with those who are nominally his fellow travellers.
It is his job to shepherd through government legislation but at least two independent Liberals — James Cowan and Serge Joyal — have said they will amend, or even defeat, the new assisted-dying bill because they do not believe it complies with the Charter of Rights.
The Supreme Court has given the government until June 6 to enact the new law but it’s not clear what levers, if any, Harder has to put political pressure on the Liberal senators that Justin Trudeau drummed out of caucus.
In Harder’s favour, senators might just be persuaded to make the latest reforms work because the institution’s credibility is plumbing freshly tested depths that might be termed “sub-NDP.”
Harder is hoping a less partisan atmosphere will encourage senators to provide robust examination to medium and longer-term policy issues that are not being addressed in the House, such as an integrated approach to an aging population.
“If, by the end of this parliament, we haven’t had discussion of the Senate around ethics, scandal or inappropriate behaviour, and we have appropriately dealt with government legislation, making improvements where appropriate in a responsible, timely fashion, I think that will change the face of the Senate,” he said.
Nearly four years without any hornswoggling or snollygostering in the Senate? A tall order indeed.