The traditional working relationship between the Senate and the House of Commons was transformed beyond all recognition with this week’s defeat of Bill C-311 in the Senate.  Prime Minister Stephen Harper refuses to recognize the limitations inherent in our Parliamentary system of government, particularly in a minority Parliament situation, and wishes to turn the Chamber of sober second thought into his personal back-stop. 

The Senate has amended countless bills over the decades, but since the outbreak of the Second World War has defeated only five bills received from the House of Commons. The reason so few have been defeated in that 70-year period is that the Senate has been acutely aware of its appointed nature. Senators have been extraordinarily reluctant to defeat legislation passed by those who Canadians have elected to represent them in Parliament. Bills have been defeated in the Senate only after prolonged study, when the views of Canadians have been solicited and then carefully considered at public meetings of its committees.

The Senate last defeated a bill it had received from the House of Commons in 1998, after its Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee held 12 days of hearings and heard from 31 witnesses. Those hearings convinced Senators that the Private Member’s Bill in question would violate the freedom of expression guarantees contained in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and they were unanimous in their decision.

Five years earlier, members from all parties in the Senate joined forces to defeat the government’s 1992 Budget Implementation Bill. This legislation, which would have merged the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council with the Canada Council, was debated extensively in the Senate. It was sent to the National Finance Committee, where 48 witnesses were heard during the course of five days of hearings. Following those hearings, members on both sides of the chamber concluded that the merger of these two major granting councils would have very damaging consequences, particularly on our universities, and joined to defeat the bill.

In every instance when the Senate defeated a bill which had originally been passed by the elected members of the House of Commons, it did so only after examining the legislation in committee, where it carefully weighed the evidence of Canadians who appeared to testify before it.

On Tuesday, this “sober second thought” approach to legislation was suddenly abandoned when the Harper government used its majority in the Senate to defeat a House of Commons bill without even a pretence of debate or public input.

Bill C-311 arrived in the Senate on May 10, 2010, but for more than six months not a single Conservative Senator rose to speak on it. In response to a request on Tuesday by Liberals to either finally express their views on this important initiative to help deal with climate change, or allow it to go to committee so that Canadians could have a chance to present their views before the Senate made a final decision on its fate, Conservative Senators decided to simply kill it outright.

History was made on Tuesday. Until the vote on Bill C-311 there had been an understanding spanning generations that there exist self-imposed limitations on a powerful appointed chamber in our Parliamentary democracy. Those limitations and that understanding have been erased by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who once again has shown little respect for Parliament or for Canadians who wish to be heard on one of the most important issues of the day, climate change.

House of Commons Bills Defeated in the Senate (1940-2010)

Year	Bill #	Subject	# of Committee Meetings	# of Witnesses
2010	C-311	Climate Change	0	0
1998	C-220	Authorship and Crime	12	31
1996	C-28	Pearson Airport	50	99
1993	C-93	Budget Implementation	5	48
1991	C-43	Abortion	10	102
1961	C-114	Bank of Canada	2	1

 

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