Senator Who Challenged O’Toole’s Leadership Banned From Senate Committees | The Canadian News

Conservative Senator Denise Batters has been removed from all Senate committees after challenging Erin O’Toole’s leadership.

O’Toole expelled the Saskatchewan senator from the conservative national caucus last month after he launched a petition aimed at forcing a referendum on his leadership within six months, rather than waiting for a vote of confidence scheduled at the party’s convention in August. of 2023.

Conservative senators have chosen to keep Batters in their fold, despite O’Toole’s warning that anyone who backs his petition will be kicked out of the caucus.

Now, however, she has been conspicuously excluded from upper house committee assignments.

Senator Leo Housakos, the acting leader of the Senate conservative group, has not responded to a request to explain Batters’ exclusion.

The batters declined to comment.

So far, Batters has had a prominent presence on various Senate committees, particularly the constitutional and legal affairs committee, of which she had been a member since she was appointed to the Senate in 2013 by former Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

During the last session of Parliament, she was vice president of that committee, where she mounted a vigorous opposition to legislation that expands access to medical assistance in the event of death.

He was also a member of the Rules, Procedures and Rights Committee of Parliament, in which he had also sat for eight years.

Prior to that, Batters served as vice chair of the Senate committee on internal economics, budgets and administration, the governing body of the upper house, and as joint chair of the scrutiny committee on regulations.

Batters’ online petition has garnered more than 6,300 signatures so far.

The chairman of the Conservative Party, Rob Batherson, has stated that the request is not valid. The party’s constitution spells out the various ways in which a leadership contest can be triggered and does not provide for a contest to be started by petition or referendum, he said.

However, the constitution also specifies that a referendum on any issue can be launched if five percent of Conservative members in at least five provinces sign a petition asking for one.

A former member of the party’s national council has written to Batherson criticizing his interpretation of the rules.

In her letter, Marilyn Elliott says that Batherson’s position “is an indefensible attempt to thwart a petition for compliance and to silence the thousands of requests for a referendum from party members.”

Batters posted the letter on social media.

After consulting legal experts, Elliott says the party’s constitution places no limits on the issues on which members can request a referendum.

He said Batherson’s narrow interpretation “raises the question of whether the party fears the results of such a request.”

Elliott adds that “we will continue to collect signatures” on Batters’ petition.

In launching her petition, Batters argued that O’Toole has lost the trust of voters by repeatedly changing policies, after running as a “true blue” conservative to win the leadership race and then pivoting toward a more moderate centrist stance. during recent federal elections in a failed attempt to broaden the party’s support.

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