Senate Decision Turns Parliament Upside Down

Aren't elected people supposed to determine what happens in government?

This week Stephen Harper allowed Conservatives in the unelected Senate to kill a climate change bill that had already been passed by elected MPs in the House, despite saying for years that the Senate should not be allowed to veto House-approved bills. This upsets the National Post’s John Ivison, who provides a pretty damning quote of Harper promising in 2005 to reform the Senate, and another promising that Canada’s mission in Afghanistan post-2011 would be strictly civilian – both of which he completely welched on this week. This prompts Ivison to ask, “How many times can a politician say something and then do the precise opposite before even his strongest supporters start to doubt him?”

The Vancouver Sun's Craig McInnes points out that Harper’s flip-flop is especially galling to people in Western Canada, “where disdain is particularly acute for the institution [the Senate] that many see as the ultimate symbol of patronage and pork-barrel politics.” Hence the Senate vote has produced that rarest of phenomena: the Edmonton Journal, headquartered in the heartland of the oilsands industry, lamenting the death of a climate change bill. The Journal doesn’t support the bill itself – which it calls NDP-sponsored “political mischief” – but does remind the prime minister that, “Democracy is not a cudgel to be wielded when the people don't pick you. It's a principle, a belief that the voters get the final say, whether you agree with them or not.” Another Western paper, the Winnipeg Free Press, echoes that sentiment.

One of the few editorial boards that actually liked the content of the bill is the Toronto Star’s. They write, “the prime minister has taken two steps backward on environmentalism” by killing the bill, and are baffled as to why the Conservatives didn’t let it pass because it didn’t actually bind them to do anything except report on emissions targets.

The Globe and Mail writes that “government members of the unelected upper house were not obliged to support a measure they disagreed with” but that the Senate’s power needs to be limited by a constitutional amendment that would let senators delay – but not veto – legislation passed by the House.