The delays are over on the government’s Bill C-14 on assisted dying. The Senate showed its true colours: cowardice. After one effort to help fix the flawed bill from the Commons, the senators surrendered. It is disappointing to report that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s solution to the senate seems to be working.
When he was just third-party leader, the Prime Minister decided to solve the senate problem by telling the Liberal senators that they were no longer part of the Liberal Party caucus. And then as Prime Minister, he has tried to distance himself from his own appointments. These people—accept for the ‘government representative’—were supposed to act independently. And, to nobody’s surprise, they did—at first.
They had good reason to disagree with Bill-C14. The government bill on assisted dying was overly restrictive and missed the yardsticks suggested by the Supreme Court. It even seems to miss the yardsticks of public opinion. Canadians have clearly indicated that they are in favour of less restrictive end of life decisions.
But Justin Trudeau and his colleagues around the cabinet table would not accept the Senate changes. The Commons voted to send the bill back to the Senate unchanged. Pundits thought the cabinet had better options. They thought the cabinet might negotiate with the senators.
The only problem with negotiations is that the cabinet could only be seen negotiating with the senators through the government representative and nobody is sure how that would fly.
Obviously, the government did not want to be seen agreeing to the senators’ changes as that would guarantee a long line of bills over the next several years coming back with changes. It is not that the new ‘independent’ senators are all that political but most of them would certainly have enjoyed this new sense of power.
Of course, the best solution is still to do something about the Senate itself. If it is just going to defer to the House of Commons, what use is it? What kind of house of sober second thought have we created? Why are we wasting money on it and people who have no clear understanding of their role as senators? We need to be rid of it.
Sure, it would require changes in the constitution but Canadians are in a mood for that to change and Justin Trudeau still has the credits with Canadians that they would agree to it.
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Copyright 2016 © Peter Lowry
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