It was unfortunate, of course, that the Government let the bill be defeated at second reading. The responsible thing to do, at the very least, would have been to let the bill proceed to the committee stage so that honourable senators could have heard from a number of expert Canadians on the issues that the bill would have addressed, and the issues that it may have caused. This has been the Senate's practice these past seventy years; even the bills that the Upper House has defeated (and let us be clear, the Senate absolutely does have the legitimate authority to defeat legislation--it can even defeat budgets) were studied comprehensively at the report stage before the whole chamber rejected the particulars of the legislation. This practice has been forgotten, apparently, by the Government.
The problem here is not with the Senate.
The Senate has done exactly what it was designed to do--and that is, to review the work done by the House of Commons, and to exercise the power to pass, amend or reject bills as it believes is in the national interest. Moreover, the reforms to the Senate being proposed by the Government--term limits, and changes to the selection process--are clearly changes of a constitutional nature, changing the fundamental characteristics of the Senate. Therefore, these changes cannot be made through a simple Act of the Parliament of Canada; these changes must be made pursuant to the amendment formula set forth in section 42(1)(b) of the Constitution Act, 1982, which requires the support of the Senate, the House of Commons, and two-thirds of provincial legislative assemblies.
And besides, today's developments demonstrate that this may have been an intentional political ploy by the Conservatives to push their flawed Senate reform bills. At the conclusion of oral questions today in the House of Commons, The Honourable John Baird P.C., M.P. (Ottawa West--Nepean), the Leader of Her Majesty's Government in the House of Commons and the Minister of the Environment, sought the unanimous consent of the House to fast-track a bill that the Government has introduced to impose eight-year term limits on senators. The motion was proposed without consultation with the opposition parties and so, of course, the opposition parties refused to consent. Drawing on this unusual decision by Conservative senators, the Government is now attempting to use it against the Red Chamber in reform discussions--the Government clearly is trying to sabotage the Senate from within, and this is unacceptable. If Conservative senators are not willing to work within the framework that they were appointed in, then they should not be senators.
Not only should Bill S-8, the Senatorial Selection Act, and Bill C-10, the Constitution Act, 2010 (Senate term limits) be rejected on the basis that they are unconstitutional if passed by the Parliament of Canada without formal provincial engagement; but moreover, Senator the Honourable Marjory LeBreton P.C. (Ontario), the Leader of Her Majesty's Government in the Senate, should resign immediately in leading her Government's caucus to attempted self-destruction in the Red Chamber. The senator's conduct, as part of the Senate leadership, is entirely unacceptable.
The problem here is with the Conservative Party of Canada.