Stephen Harper unveiled his new policy on the Senate Friday: Death by retirement.
The prime minister said he will formalize his de facto moratorium on Senate appointments, which, if the policy takes, will see Patrick Brazeau as the last man snoozing in 2049 (on condition the suspended senator’s suspension is lifted).
Long before then, the Red Chamber will have ceased to function, if no new appointments are made. There are currently 22 vacancies in the 105-seat upper house. If Harper wins a majority and follows through with his plan, there will be a further 23 empty seats by the time of the next election in 2019.
Harper explained that, besides saving millions of dollars by leaving the chamber half-empty, his policy would force provinces to get serious about plans for reform or abolition.
It will certainly focus the minds in some provincial capitals. Ontario is already down seven senators and would lose another seven by the time of the next election; Quebec has six vacancies and would be short another six by 2019. Nova Scotia is missing two of its 10 senators and would stand to lose a further three; while P.E.I. would see its representation halved.
The new plan is sure to bring Harper into conflict with the Supreme Court, which was explicit in stating that a long-term policy of non-appointments would fundamentally alter Canada’s constitutional architecture. Not for the first time, the prime minister is advocating a policy that he knows is likely to be deemed unconstitutional.
But the prime minister probably considers such legal niceties as problems to be faced somewhere down the road. First he has an election to win and the moratorium at least means he now has a policy that does not position him as a defender of the status quo.
As he said in his remarks in Regina, Canadians are divided over reform versus abolition but they are not divided over opposition to the continuation of an unelected, unaccountable Senate.
He said his government will take no action that further entrenches the current set-up — a policy that offers a clear counterpoint to Justin Trudeau’s idea of improving the Senate by improving the quality of senators.
In truth, Harper’s options were limited. As his former chief of staff, Ian Brodie, wrote last year in an article that suggested the idea of formalizing the moratorium, Harper could “hardly run the risk of appointing another profligate.”
Having failed in his attempts to introduce elections for senators and term limits, Harper’s patience with the upper house is worn thin and his preference for abolition apparent.
But he does not possess a magic wand that could make the Senate disappear. The power to appoint is the only hocus pocus at his disposal.
The constitutional case for the defence is that the number of senators will not be reduced to zero — or at least not in the next four years — and that the institution will still be there, providing a degree of regional representation. It doesn’t sound persuasive, even as I write it.
The odds must be good that, if Harper is re-elected, a challenge will make it to the Supreme Court, which will in turn tell the government they are constitutionally obliged to fill the eventide home at the east end of Centre Block with some new, if not necessarily young, blood.
But the prime minister appears to have concluded that at this stage he doesn’t need an ironclad legal case; he needs a policy on the Senate that can get him through an election campaign. The moratorium gives him that and will provide a fig leaf of cover when the Mike Duffy trial resumes next month.
It’s not great, but it’s an improvement on simply throwing his hands in the air and saying we’re stuck with the Senate the way it is.
National Post
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