Trudeau’s multi-caucus Senate comes with a cost

Legislation would codify leadership roles

• The unaligned Senate that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau first created when he pushed Liberal senators out of the party’s caucus will be cemented with new legislation that will also make the red chamber more costly.

When he first became Liberal leader, Trudeau moved to kick Liberal senators out of the party’s caucus, meaning they no longer meet regularly with Liberal MPS and don’t have a formal role in the party’s legislative agenda.

When he became prime minister, Trudeau changed the appointment process for the Senate, making it more independent and new senators appointed to the chamber have mostly sat with the Independent Senators Group.

The ISG is the largest group in the chamber with 42 members. It is followed by the Conservatives, the last party caucus in the Senate, with 20 and the Canadian

Senators Group and the Progressive Senate Group each with 12.

The ISG, Canadian and Progressive groups aren’t connected to political parties in the House of Commons.

Using his new process, Trudeau has appointed nearly half of the 105 senators in the chamber, with 51 senators coming in during his tenure and with 14 current vacancies the new process will soon be responsible for selecting more than half of the Senate.

Since Trudeau no longer has a caucus in the Senate, there are three senators acting as the government’s representative, deputy representative and liaison, helping to move legislation through the chamber.

The new bill would codify those positions as well as create positions for leaders and deputy leaders of all the Senate groups.

Sen. Yuen Pau Woo, who is the facilitator or leader of the ISG, said the bill is codifying what already exists.

“The most important thing is the recognition that the Senate is made up of groups, other than the government and the opposition, and that these other groups, self-identify as non-partisan,” he said.

The new legislation comes with a cost as well; in addition to the base pay senators get of approximately $160,000, there are currently top ups for the government’s representative and the leader of opposition of just over $42,000.

On top of those payments, the new legislation would offer the other caucus leaders top-ups on their pay, with someone in Woo’s position getting an additional $42,000 and the leaders of other Senate caucuses getting $21,000 boosts. Woo himself will not receive the increase payments even if the bill passes, because his term as facilitator ends this year and the raises would not kick in until 2022.

Woo, though conscious of the cost, argued the raises make sense because the leaders of these new Senate groups are doing the work. He also notes party leaders in the House of Commons get a pay raise.

“The addition of these paid positions is necessary as a matter of fairness, because, the leaders of these other groups perform essentially the same duties as the leaders of the government or the opposition,” he said.

Sen. Peter Harder, who was the government’s representative in the Senate until last year, said it is time to

recognize the Senate isn’t the same as it was.

“Five years ago when I arrived, there were just what they called unaffiliated senators that weren’t either Liberal or Conservatives and now you have only one group that is identified with a political name,” he said

During debate last week, Conservative Sen. Denise Batters argued the bill seems to make the opposition less important in the Senate, reducing it to just one of several groups in the Senate.

“Bill S-4 seems to dilute

these key powers of the opposition and its important historical role,” she said.

Harder said the opposition will still have a sizable role in the new Senate and he believes the new bill is only a small change.

“I think the whole progress has been made because it’s been respectful and evolutionary rather than revolutionary.”

Both Harder and Woo said they expect there are more changes that may come to pass in the Senate as it asserts more independence

and becomes less political.

In a poll released Monday, 80 per cent of Canadians believe having senators sit independently from a political party is a good change.

The poll conducted by Nanos research was commissioned by Senator Donna Dasko, a former pollster herself. It also found 67 per cent of Canadians believe the new independent application process is an improvement.