The Senate chamber in Ottawa, seen in October, 2017, is today populated with members who may not agree amongst themselves on the nature of their work.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
The Senate that returned from holidays this week has evolved from a chamber of partisan appointees to one that is, for the first time since Confederation, dominated by independents unfettered by political ties to either the government or the official opposition.
It is a transformation that has, so far, served the purposes of Justin Trudeau and his Liberal government, but one that also is injecting a degree of chaotic uncertainty to the parliamentary process.
A confrontation last year, in which senators unanimously forced the government to promise that the Indian Act would eventually be stripped of sexism, marked just one of several times that the newly configured Red Chamber flexed its muscles even before the non-partisans had the majority of seats.
The Senate tried to amend eight of the 37 pieces of legislation that received royal assent since Justin Trudeau's Liberals took office in 2015. With government acceptance, it succeeded on six.
Compare that with the final session of the former Conservative government under Stephen Harper. Over 22 months, the government passed 61 bills and the Senate, which was then dominated by Conservatives, amended just one of them.
The Senate today is unpredictable. It is a chamber populated with members who do not agree amongst themselves on the basic nature of their job description. And senators are still getting caught doing silly things – such as giving themselves medals.
Yet, Peter Harder, the non-affiliated senator who is the government's representative in the Red Chamber, says the Senate is functioning just as it should and that the increasingly independent chamber is proving to be accountable, transparent and complementary to the House of Commons.
"Job one" of the Senate is assessing and passing government legislation, Mr. Harder said in a recent interview. "This government has been in office just over two years," he said. "In the Senate, we have not used time allocation [to cut off debate] at all. And yet we've been able to advance the government's agenda."
The 39 members of the Independent Senators Group (ISG) and the seven unaffiliated senators, added together, have more seats than either the Conservatives, who have 33, or the independent Liberals, who have 12. When the 11 current vacancies are filled, the independents will have an absolute majority in the 105-seat chamber.
Some of the partisan senators suggest that bodes well for Mr. Trudeau.
They point to an analysis done last June by the CBC that found the independent senators collectively voted in favour of government legislation 95 per cent of the time – more often, even, than the senators who were appointed as Liberals and then cut loose from the Liberal caucus by Mr. Trudeau in 2014.
"Their independence from the Trudeau government is, in large degree of the time, highly questionable," Conservative Senator Denise Batters, says of the senators who were appointed as non-partisans.
The same CBC study found that the Conservative senators have opposed government legislation in 75 per cent of recorded votes. Ms. Batters, who does not agree with Mr. Harder that a senator's job is to move ahead the government's agenda, said that is as it should be.
The Senate, she said, is supposed to be the home of sober second thought and "opposition is very much needed in that whole concept. You have the best sober second thought when you have opposition and you have that clash of different ideas."
The new senators are reluctant to buck the Liberals, Ms. Batters said. "Some of the time they actually make some noise in the beginning about opposing things," she said. "But when push comes to shove, the vast, vast majority of the time they end up caving and voting with the Trudeau government."
But Senator Yuen Pau Woo, the facilitator of the ISG, says independence is not reflected in voting records.
To measure the independence of the Senate, one has to look at the arc of legislation, including what is said at committees and in debates in the chamber, Mr. Woo said. When those things are taken into consideration, he said, it becomes clear that the independent senators have been asking hard questions and proposing remedies when they see flaws.
"If we were to defeat most or all government bills, would that be a sign of an independent Senate? Is that the measure of a successful Senate? Obviously not," Mr. Woo said. "The measure is whether or not there has been the kind of scrutiny and investigation and critical questioning that's gone into bills, from time to time, leading to amendments."
Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer said in a televised interview last year that, if elected, he would abandon the process the Liberals developed for appointing independent senators and would, instead, appoint "Conservative senators who would help implement a Conservative vision for Canada that would improve the quality of life for Canadians." His office said recently that those remarks still stand.
But Mr. Harder said promoting the appointment of partisan senators will be a difficult position to sell in the 2019 election campaign.
Independence of senators "is an approach to governance that will find favour amongst Canadians," Mr. Harder said. "Partisanship and overt antics of partisanship in our political institutions, I don't think bring credit to Canadians."