Michael Chong's Reform Act may not clear Senate before election

Michael Chong's much-discussed and mostlyamended Reform Act cleared the House of Commons in late February.

But as the clock ticks toward summer recess, the Senate has yet to send it to committee.

Could senators effectivelykill C-586by failing to prioritize it for passage before Parliament dissolves?

"There is more than enough time for the Senate to pass the bill before the end of June. The question is... whether or not the Senate has the will to pass the bill," Chongtold CBC News on Tuesday.

Chong had to scale back his original ambitions, but says thebill passed by MPsstill offers "meaningful reform" in the form of freer votes in the Commons and more power for MPs to represent their constituents.

But intended rules around MPstriggering leadership reviews, suspending and reinstatingcaucus membersand selectingcaucus chairs became more like voluntary guidelines when the bill was amended. Another option limitsthe power of a party leaderto approve candidates.

The former cabinet ministerturnedbackbenchersays despite his lobbying, the Senate has done "practically nothing" to advance the bill. (It hasbeen up for debate twice, with few senators weighing in before debate adjourned.)

"What I've been told is that the Senate's been quite busy, and that they've had other items on the agenda, and I think that argument made sense in the early weeks...but it's now been two-and-a-half months," he said.

TheSenate does havebigger fish to fry over thepre-election heat, includinganti-terrorism legislation and the latestomnibusbudget bill. But Chong sees a failure to respectMPs.

"The bill didn't marginally pass the House of Commons,it overwhelmingly passed...with support from allthree recognized parties ... 260 votes in favour,17 opposed."

'Heart is in the right place'

Claude Carignan, the government leader in the Senate, wrote CBC News to saythe timeline for BillC-586"so far is within average" and "not unusual."

Carignan saidthere's no mechanism available to allow his office to prioritize a private member's bill over a government bill,or speed debate. Changes were proposed to the Senate's rules committee, but Liberals there are stalling.

Joan Fraser,deputy leader of the Senate Liberals, isone of the few senators to speak in the brief debate, so far. And she's not a fan.

"Good intentions don't always get us where we want to go," she told the Senate last Thursday. "I believe this bill would have the perverse effect of discouraging citizens' engagement with politics and, Lord knows, we don't want to discourage citizens' engagement with politics."

While "Mr. Chong's heart is in the right place," she said, "the law should not be determining how caucuses govern themselves. It really should not."

Fraser'sconcerns echo arguments made during the Commons debate. Former Liberal leader Stphane Dion, for example,wrote a newspaper editorial explaining how his experience madehim wary ofgiving a grumpy caucusthe power to depose a leader pickedby a party's membership.

Chongsaysthese arguments misunderstandwhat the bill really does. Caucuses would vote on what applied to them.

With timingtight,"any senator who suggests that the bill should be amended, is in fact proposing to kill the bill,"he said.

Doing Harper's 'dirty work'?

Senators who were elected officials before being appointed includingformer Ontario Progressive Conservative cabinet minister Bob Runciman and former Liberal MP Serge Joyal support the measures, Chong said.

"For certain senators, they were appointed by certain party leaders and they'revery beholden to the existing power structure here in Ottawa. That's the reason for the resistance," he said.

"I told MichaelChongfrom the beginning that his party would look for a way to kill his bill, and that it was likely to the Senate that it would turn to do its dirty work," NDP democratic reform criticCraig Scott wrote CBC News."If they want to hasten their own abolition, they are going about it in exactly the right way."

"We've seen in the Duffy trial the extent to which the prime minister's office is involved in things as sensitive as the audits of sitting senators," saidLiberal Dominic LeBlanc."Partisan control of the Senate is used to make sure that in this case the House of Commons' will is thwarted.

"It's too bad because it'sembarassingfor one of their own members," said the Liberal house leader."They should have the guts to stand up and defeat it, if they want to do that."

"My worry, as someone who supports a second chamber... is that if the Senate doesn't pass this bill before the end of June, the institution will be fundamentally damaged in the eyes of the public,"Chongsaid.

Democracticreform advocate DaveMeslinhas organized an online lobby effort Friends of the Reform Actaskingsupporters to write senators toensure all the time and energy spent on C-586 isn'twasted.

"The irony is that when I accepted amendments to the bill last September, many people criticized those amendments as amending the bill to the point of it not being of any importance," Chongsaid. "Now there are senators who are voicing opposition to the bill precisely because they think it goes too far."