Liberals bury Senate rule changes, pay raises for some caucus leaders, in budget bill

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OTTAWA — Changes that would formally recognize the new caucus groups in the Senate, give their leaders higher salaries and more say in how the red chamber is run are buried in the Liberals’ budget implementation bill after that previous efforts to change the rules failed to get through Parliament.

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Currently, the Senate rules only recognize two organized groups in the chamber: the government and the opposition. But the Senate has changed dramatically since Trudeau’s Liberals came to power with 60 senators appointed through a new nonpartisan process that identifies as neither government nor opposition.

The Senate now has four separate caucuses: the Independent Senators Caucus (ISG), the Progressive Senator Caucus, the Canadian Senator Caucus, and the Conservatives. The Conservatives are the only group still connected to a party in the House of Commons.

Despite being the largest group, the ISG does not consider itself the government, with a handful of senators acting in that role to push legislation through the chamber.

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State House Leader MP Mark Holland said the budget implementation bill cements the changes the government wanted to make to make the Senate more non-partisan.

“There are a variety of different Senate groups, potentially new Senate groups in the future. So this law allows for recognition of the new configuration of the Senate as more and more independent Senators are appointed,” he said.

Senator Raymonde Saint-Germain, the ISG facilitator and, in effect, the group’s leader, said she welcomes the long-awaited changes.

“The law reflects the reality of the contemporary Senate and gives tools and powers to all recognized groups in addition to those in government and opposition,” he said in an email on Wednesday.

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“Currently, 80 percent of senators are independents, but without these changes, the rules reflect a time when the Senate was made up of nearly 100 percent senators who were members of two political groups.”

Legislation has a cost.

In addition to a senator’s base salary of approximately $160,000, the new legislation offers additional perks to other caucus leaders. The leader of the largest group, currently the Independent Senators Caucus, would receive a $42,000 raise and the leaders of the smaller caucuses would each receive a $21,000 raise.

Currently, only the representative of the government and the leader of the opposition receive a top-up of just over $42,000.

The new bill would also ensure that different groups in the Senate are consulted when the government makes appointments such as a new auditor general and an ethics officer.

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The proposed changes were first considered in the last Parliament as part of his own legislation, which passed the Senate but died on the order document when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called an election last summer.

Holland said that considering the financial implications, including these changes as part of the budget bill makes sense and is more efficient. He said he is confident that the new version of the Senate is here to stay and these changes simply acknowledge that.

“It would take a long, long time to start appointing senators under a more partisan model to undo it, and I don’t think that reflects what Canadians would want to see either.”

The only officially partisan group in the Senate is the Conservatives, who have been reduced to 16 members. The Independent Group has 41, the Progressives 14, the Canadian Senators 12, and there are 15 vacant seats.

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Conservative Sen. Don Plett was unavailable Wednesday due to a series of House votes, but he spoke about the original bill last spring, saying that while he generally supported it, he rejected the idea that the bill it would make the Senate less partisan.

“The ISG loves to tell everyone that it is non-partisan, but this is simply not true. Time and time again, they have shown it by supporting government legislation. This is not surprising given that they were appointed by a liberal government that shares their liberal views,” he said.

“This bill does not make the Senate more independent. The Senate has always been independent. Prime Minister Trudeau did neither more nor less. The Senate derives its independence from the fact that senators are appointed and not elected.

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