Sleepy Senate Sparks Hot Debate

The Senate is best known for the rubber stamp it puts on legislation that has passed third reading in the House of Commons. 

It is also known as a resting place for citizens of distinction and party loyalists who are handy with fundraising.

But a series of scandals has made it a hot-button issue in recent weeks. Not that it hasn’t been before. Books about Senate reform gather dust in libraries, coming out with some regularity over the years since Confederation.

Debate about what to do with the Senate, which ranges from doing nothing at all to giving it a radical overhaul, reached new heights in the House of Commons this week. The NDP has strengthened its call for the Senate to be dissolved, a call the PM describes as insincere.

NDP Parliamentary Reform critic Craig Scott tabled a motion this week calling for the federal government to talk with the provinces and territories about steps to immediately abolish “the unelected and unaccountable Senate of Canada.”

The NDP has been incensed over remarks made by Senate Speaker Noël Kinsella that Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page had overstepped his mandate in taking legal action against the federal government to get access to spending documents.

Last week Kinsella told the Senate that Page is under the authority of the Parliamentary Librarian and subordinate to the Speakers in the House and the Senate, and “must act within the framework of this organizational structure.” 

“By asking the courts to decide the question of his mandate, the Parliamentary Budget Officer has disregarded the established authority and organizational structure of which he is a part,” Kinsella said.

The remarks were part of a debate over a possible Senate committee review of whether Page breached the privilege of senators with his court action to get documents about government cutbacks.

On Thursday, NDP Ethics and Access to Information Critic Charlie Angus blasted the Senate for considering the review.

“What we’re seeing here goes to the very heart of parliamentary democracy, that you have an unelected, an unaccountable group that is interfering with the right of democratically elected parliamentarians to get key financial information that we need in order to do our job,” he said. 

“This is completely unacceptable. This again shows how the Senate is used again and again to thwart the democratic will of the Canadian people.”

Early in their current mandate, the Tories introduced legislation to set term limits on senators that would be selected through elections. The bill is still in the early stages of passing through Parliament.

NDP leader Thomas Mulcair began question period Wednesday by blasting those efforts to reform the Senate as “moribund” and “weak-kneed.”

Prime Minister Stephen Harper countered by saying the NDP knows the provinces would never allow the Senate to be abolished and in calling for that action the NDP was only stalling on Tory reforms to see senators elected in hopes of naming NDP senators after 2015.

The debate comes as spending scandals plague several senators and another was accused of dating his much younger staff member.