Senate delays are just another urban myth: Senator McCoy
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Instead of focusing on the myth that the Senate routinely delays government legislation, we should look at how it performs its constitutional duties.
Everyone knows that the Senate delays government legislation — don’t we?
Well, no, we don’t. In fact, the House of Commons tends to take almost three times as long to deal with government legislation as the Senate does.
This incontestable fact is based on an actual count of official parliamentary records. My staff and I pored over the numbers for the last 10 Parliaments (over the past 37 years). On average, government bills spend 144 days in Parliament from first to final reading. Only 35 of those days are spent in the Senate. The House of Commons is responsible for the other 109 days.
In other words, the Senate does not delay passage of government legislation. It’s the other way around: the government delays passage of its own bills, since it’s the government that enjoys near-total control of the House of Commons most of the time. It sits on bills for months on end in its own chamber.
So how did the Senate get saddled with an undeserved reputation as an instrument of delay? It comes from the government, of course.
What’s more, it turns out that the government has been broadcasting this myth for as long as we’ve had a Senate. In the very first session of Canada’s Parliament 150 years ago, senators complained about ministers pushing them to pass legislation at the speed of light toward the end of the parliamentary session. Senators were expected to shuffle bills “in one door and out the other,” one senator complained in the chamber during a session shortly after Confederation. A Senate committee formally reviewed the allegation of delay in 1868 and found it to be unfounded. Instead, the culprit was the government itself, which was holding legislation back.
All these years later, the rhetoric stays the same. It’s a convenient cover story when the government wants to divert attention from its own foot-dragging on numerous files.
This tactic was taken to new levels of absurdity in mid-November when Parliamentary Secretary Bill Blair warned senators not to delay Bill C-45, the Cannabis Act. The Senate was being told to hurry up even before it received the bill!
The truth is that when it comes to passing government legislation in a timely and attentive manner, the Senate has a solid track record. Throughout our 150-year history, the Senate has moved with commendable speed.
Of course, some notable exceptions have occurred over the years. For example, in 1990 the Liberal majority in the Senate delayed the Progressive Conservatives’ GST legislation for as long as it could and staged a filibuster for 10 long days and nights. Liberal senators also argued as hard as they could against free trade, although a federal election in 1988 put an end to that.
Another example is more current: Bill C-210, changing the lyrics of our national anthem to make it gender neutral. On this one, the Senate needs to plead guilty as charged — the bill has been held up here for over a year. That’s an unfortunate blot on the Senate’s record, and senators would be well advised to remember our task of reviewing legislation without undue delay.
However, Bill C-210 is not government legislation; it is a backbenchers’ bill, and the House of Commons itself is very slow to pass these. In Stephen Harper’s last Parliament, for example, only 34 out of a total 798 Bills introduced by MPs ever became law, and yet that was more than in any other Parliament since 1980. So, the Senate’s record on this type of legislation is not as bad as it first appears.
The time has come to acknowledge that the Senate does not routinely delay government legislation. Our clearing rate is just a little over one month, on average. Most people wait longer than that for their insurance company to process a simple damage claim.
We need to bury this urban myth once and for all. As we head into our next 150 years, let’s concentrate our efforts on evidence-based observations about how the Senate performs its constitutional duties. We may be in for even more pleasant surprises.
Note to readers: The Honourable Elaine McCoy, Q.C. passed away on December 29, 2020. Learn more about her work in Parliament.
This article appeared in the November 30, 2017 edition of Policy Options.
Instead of focusing on the myth that the Senate routinely delays government legislation, we should look at how it performs its constitutional duties.
Everyone knows that the Senate delays government legislation — don’t we?
Well, no, we don’t. In fact, the House of Commons tends to take almost three times as long to deal with government legislation as the Senate does.
This incontestable fact is based on an actual count of official parliamentary records. My staff and I pored over the numbers for the last 10 Parliaments (over the past 37 years). On average, government bills spend 144 days in Parliament from first to final reading. Only 35 of those days are spent in the Senate. The House of Commons is responsible for the other 109 days.
In other words, the Senate does not delay passage of government legislation. It’s the other way around: the government delays passage of its own bills, since it’s the government that enjoys near-total control of the House of Commons most of the time. It sits on bills for months on end in its own chamber.
So how did the Senate get saddled with an undeserved reputation as an instrument of delay? It comes from the government, of course.
What’s more, it turns out that the government has been broadcasting this myth for as long as we’ve had a Senate. In the very first session of Canada’s Parliament 150 years ago, senators complained about ministers pushing them to pass legislation at the speed of light toward the end of the parliamentary session. Senators were expected to shuffle bills “in one door and out the other,” one senator complained in the chamber during a session shortly after Confederation. A Senate committee formally reviewed the allegation of delay in 1868 and found it to be unfounded. Instead, the culprit was the government itself, which was holding legislation back.
All these years later, the rhetoric stays the same. It’s a convenient cover story when the government wants to divert attention from its own foot-dragging on numerous files.
This tactic was taken to new levels of absurdity in mid-November when Parliamentary Secretary Bill Blair warned senators not to delay Bill C-45, the Cannabis Act. The Senate was being told to hurry up even before it received the bill!
The truth is that when it comes to passing government legislation in a timely and attentive manner, the Senate has a solid track record. Throughout our 150-year history, the Senate has moved with commendable speed.
Of course, some notable exceptions have occurred over the years. For example, in 1990 the Liberal majority in the Senate delayed the Progressive Conservatives’ GST legislation for as long as it could and staged a filibuster for 10 long days and nights. Liberal senators also argued as hard as they could against free trade, although a federal election in 1988 put an end to that.
Another example is more current: Bill C-210, changing the lyrics of our national anthem to make it gender neutral. On this one, the Senate needs to plead guilty as charged — the bill has been held up here for over a year. That’s an unfortunate blot on the Senate’s record, and senators would be well advised to remember our task of reviewing legislation without undue delay.
However, Bill C-210 is not government legislation; it is a backbenchers’ bill, and the House of Commons itself is very slow to pass these. In Stephen Harper’s last Parliament, for example, only 34 out of a total 798 Bills introduced by MPs ever became law, and yet that was more than in any other Parliament since 1980. So, the Senate’s record on this type of legislation is not as bad as it first appears.
The time has come to acknowledge that the Senate does not routinely delay government legislation. Our clearing rate is just a little over one month, on average. Most people wait longer than that for their insurance company to process a simple damage claim.
We need to bury this urban myth once and for all. As we head into our next 150 years, let’s concentrate our efforts on evidence-based observations about how the Senate performs its constitutional duties. We may be in for even more pleasant surprises.
Note to readers: The Honourable Elaine McCoy, Q.C. passed away on December 29, 2020. Learn more about her work in Parliament.
This article appeared in the November 30, 2017 edition of Policy Options.