Senate.

• Author: Reynolds, Barbara

When the summer recess began at the end of June, the Senate had adopted 22 Commons Government bills, 3 Senate Government bills and 3 Commons Public bills since the start of the session in October 1999. In addition, the Senate amended 2 Commons Government bills and 2 Senate Government bills.

Legislation

In its report, the Royal Commission on the Reform of the House of Lords (Wakeham Report) proposed that the role of a second chamber should be complementary to that of the House of Commons. Second chambers are useful institutions for identifying points of concern and raising questions about the Government's policy intentions. Nowhere was that role more apparent than during the Senate consideration of Bill C-20 An Act to give effect to the requirement for clarity as set out in the opinion of the Supreme Court of Canada in the Quebec Secession reference. The Senate devoted considerable time and energy examining this legislation, debating it in the Chamber for almost 30 hours and examining it in committee for another 35 hours. While the special committee established to examine Bill C-20 scheduled several lengthy meetings outside of regular sitting times in order to hear from outstanding constitutional scholars, these meetings were attended not only by committee members but also attracted a sizeable number of other senators. The calibre of the speeches, the quality of the arguments and the penetrating analysis of underlying concepts illustrated the knowledge, expertise and experience that the Senators can bring to their work. Moreover, Senators did not follow strict party lines in advancing their arguments, as illustrated by the fact that the five amendments proposed at third reading were all from the government bench. Furthermore, there was considerable independence in the voting on these amendments, all of which were defeated, the first very narrowly 46-50, with three abstentions. Bill C-20 received Royal Assent on June 29, 2000.

Speaker's Rulings

Several procedural issues were raised during the Senate consideration of Bill C-20. Just prior to the Easter recess, Senator John Lynch-Staunton, Leader of the Opposition, moved a motion that upon committal of Bill C-20 to committee, that the committee be instructed to amend C-20 to rank the Senate with the House of Commons in assessing the clarity of any referendum question and the significance of any vote. Senator Dan Hays, Deputy Leader of the Government, raised a point of order, questioning whether the Senate could mandate a committee to do something that it already had the power to do. He argued that this kind of motion of instruction must be permissive, rather than mandatory. In his ruling, the Speaker...