As far as political scandals go the current affair concerning former conservative senator Mike Duffy and Nigel Wright, former chief of staff to Stephen Harper, over a $90,000 secret payment is one of the largest to hit Canadian politics in quite some time. The controversy deepened yesterday as the RCMP launched a criminal investigation into the affair. Yet it is not the prominent faces of the scandal and their ethical grievances that have made this scandal what it is, but rather the impact that one mistake could, potentially, have.
During the many years the Conservatives wandered in the desert of opposition, it was always clear that Senate reform was on Stephen Harper’s mind, and on that of his caucus. For years, the Senate had been a boneyard for loyal Liberal hacks, flacks, bag-men, and defeated candidates. The legacy of the Liberal Party of Canada, which had held power virtually uninterrupted for decades, was, amongst other things, the appointment of an astonishing number of particularly partisan Liberal Senators.
Meanwhile, an emerging young opposition MP from the Reform wing of the Canadian political right took note. In his earlier years Stephen Harper was quoted as saying that he did not support Senate appointments and that the practice of patronage had no place in any part of the Parliament of Canada. In fact, Harper was the leading figure in his own party promoting a Triple E Senate, “elected, equal, and effective”. This is in stark contrast to the constitutionally enshrined house of “sober second thought” bequeathed to us by the authors of Canada’s constitution. The drafters of the British North America Act in 1867 were concerned about the need to balance the unruly citizens, represented by the House of Commons, with the interests of the Provinces. However, the reality of Harper’s anti-patronage and pro-democratic line in his formative years is not the real reason that he hates the Senate. Even though touting the Senate as undemocratic — which it is — is a plausible reason to object to it, republicanism was not his motivation.
Harper’s animosity toward the Senate is rooted in his experience as a politician in Alberta. The Senate is full of impractical and dogmatic practices not the least of which is the disproportionate distribution of Senate seats. Regardless of the relative population to other parts of the country, Quebec is guaranteed under the Constitution certain privileges that the Western provinces are not. Representing Western Canada, Harper, like many others, believes that the Senate acts to alienate the Canadian West with its outdated practices of favouring Central Canada.
This reason in particular prompted Harper’s early opposition. That is why his subsequent actions provide such an apparent contrast to his earlier position. In 2008, he appointed 18 new Conservative Senators. The move was laced with hypocrisy but made a good deal of political sense. At that time, the Liberal-dominated Senate was causing him all sorts of trouble, stagnating his legislation and being uncooperative with the new Conservative government. The only way Harper could get around these Liberal Senators was to play the game, go against his own position and appoint Conservative Senators to outnumber the dominant Liberals.
In attempting to deal with this issue Harper is back to his usual playbook. He has tried to downplay the issue by addressing it as little as possible, leaving his caucus to deal with the brunt of the opposition and media’s questions. When he does speak, he is cryptic about the content of his plans for reform.
At the moment, he is carefully weighing his options; every move he makes from here on out will be in response to voters’ sentiments. More and more it seems that Canadians will want Harper to listen to his old self and deal with the problems in the Senate for good.
The belief nowadays is that as a result of the most recent string of scandals to hit the Senate, Harper will finally be able to implement the reforms he always wanted. But we cannot forget that he has tried once already and failed. From all his talk about Senate reform in his early days, Harper has done almost nothing to reform the Senate while in office. Rather, he has only continued the tradition of a partisan patronage. All the while, Harper has backed himself into a corner. If he does the right thing and makes changes to the Senate then he will only increase his own measure of hypocrisy. If he does nothing, voters in his base will most likely turn on him, and there are signs that some already have. It is certainly safe to say that this time Harper will be under more pressure than ever before from his own party and voters alike to finally fix the Senate. But for someone in as delicate a situation as Harper, any move he makes will be a risk.
Breen Wilkinson is a second year student at U of T, studying English and History.
