Harper’s lack of plans for Senate may head to Supreme Court

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This article was published 26/07/2015 (3194 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA – Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s plan to starve the Senate into reform or abolition may land him back in front of the Supreme Court of Canada.

Vancouver lawyer Aniz Alani, who had already launched a court challenge to try and force Harper to stop leaving Senate seats unfilled, wants the government to get the high court’s blessing for Harper’s new plan not to appoint any more Senators until the provinces get together to agree on reforms or decide to abolish it altogether.

And an Ottawa constitutional expert says Harper may already be in violation of constitutional provisions ensuring certain representation in the Senate for Quebec and the Atlantic provinces.

Errol Mendes, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Ottawa, told the Free Press in an interview, when Canada was created in 1867, the Constitution guaranteed the founding provinces certain representation in the Senate. Currently with one-quarter of Quebec’s 24 seats empty, and one-fifth of the 10 seats allotted to each of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, Harper could already be in violation of the Constitution, said Mendes.

“He’s trying to do indirectly what the Constitution and the Supreme Court said he can’t do directly,” said Mendes. “What he doesn’t seem to understand is the foundations of the Senate are written into the Constitution.”

Mendes doesn’t think the government will give any thought to actually taking this question to the court. It already asked the Supreme Court to rule whether it could introduce elected senators or term limits without opening the Constitution and the high court said no.

There are now 22 vacancies out of 105 seats. That will grow to at least 26 by the end of 2016 and 34 by the end of 2017.

On Friday, Harper said other than a few Senators and some people who want to be senators, no one is complaining about the vacancies and he said as long as the Senate can still pass bills, there is no constitutional obligation to fill the vacancies.

Mendes said Harper is wrong about that and expects the Supreme Court will eventually be asked to weigh in, should Harper win the election. NDP Leader Tom Mulcair has also said he won’t appoint Senators, though he has said he would call the provinces together to meet to work on getting it abolished.

Manitoba Lib Sen. Maria Chaput said if Harper was serious about fixing the Senate or getting rid of it, he’d do the same. By simply dumping it on the provinces, Chaput said Harper is just trying to take attention off the problems so many of his own Senate appointees are facing.

That includes two who are facing fraud charges for Senate expenses (one of whom is also on trial for domestic assault charges) and one currently under investigation for harassing staff and having an affair with an underage girl.

Like most of his predecessors Harper filled the upper chamber with his own people. Among the current senators in the upper chamber are the president of the Conservative fundraising arm, the former president of the party, Harper’s former press secretary, the director of the Conservative Party in Quebec, the vice-president of the Conservative Party, three former Conservative MPs, and at least seven failed Conservative candidates for the House of Commons.

Among the current senators appointed by former Prime Minister Jean Chretien are his former director of communications, the vice-president of the Liberal Party, the vice-president of the Liberal Party’s Quebec wing, a director of fundraising for the Liberals, at least three former Liberal MPs, and a former Liberal chief of staff.

All three of Manitoba’s current senators were partisan appointments including Don Plett, the former president of the Conservative party of Canada, Maria Chaput, a Liberal party worker in Manitoba, and Janis Johnson, who co-directed Brian Mulroney’s leadership campaign in 1983 and was the national director of the PC Party of Canada.

Plett did not want to comment on Harper’s decision and Johnson’s assistant did not respond to a request for an interview.

Mendes says it’s not to say all partisan appointments are bad, but he said the problem with the Senate isn’t with the institution itself, it’s with the people in it.

mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca