As if the situation was not tense enough in Ottawa, the senator responsible for studying a bill that appears as a condition for the Trudeau government’s survival in the fall finally admitted Wednesday that he does not plan to adopt the text for the deadline set by the Bloc Québécois.
Appointed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau after a career as an ambassador, Senator Peter Boehm openly opposes Bill C-282, which proposes to protect supply management for milk, poultry and eggs, during future commercial negotiations.
He said everything bad he thought of the idea during a meeting of a Senate committee of which he is president, at the end of September. “It is not in the interest of Canada,” he said regarding the text endorsed by elected officials from all parties in Ottawa in 2023.
However, the very day Mr. Boehm made these remarks, the Bloc Québécois made the adoption of C-282 one of the two conditions for the Trudeau government to survive in the fall. The ultimatum specifies that this bill must obtain royal assent by October 29, otherwise the Bloc will support motions aimed at overthrowing the government, causing new federal elections.
After having twice been refused his requests for an interview, THE Duty went directly to meet Senator Boehm at the entrance to a Senate committee on Wednesday afternoon. He confirmed that C-282 will not come out of his committee before November. He added, nonchalantly, that he did not feel the slightest bit concerned by the risk of elections generated by this calendar. “We have a way here to work with private bills. It’s different here, we have our process. »
Fifteen months in the Senate
The vice-chairman of the committee, Senator Peter Harder, did not want to comment further on the matter on Wednesday. “All questions about this committee’s schedule should be directed to Senate Communications Officers responsible for the Foreign Affairs Committee,” responded all in English to the Duty his assistant Renee Allen.
Senator Harder, also appointed by Justin Trudeau, was even his representative in the Senate between April 2016 and January 2020. Former Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, he made fun of Bloc MP Yves Perron on September 25, while the latter -he came to defend his private bill before the senators.
“Are you saying that other sectors — the auto sector, the steel sector or other agricultural sectors — should also get their hands in the ministry law? » the senator asked, before interrupting the answer with a “you’re special”.
Bill C-282, which aims to add a paragraph on supply management to the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Act, was adopted in the House of Commons on June 21, 2023. Only 49 Conservative MPs and two Liberals opposed it.
The Senate ignored it until April 16, 2024, when it was sent to the Foreign Affairs Committee, which did not begin its study until September. The Bloc Québécois fears that meetings will be added and that the study will drag on endlessly.
Failed ultimatum
“Something is certain and certain, the request of the Bloc Québécois, the Trudeau government laughs at that. October 29, forget it,” says conservative Quebec senator Leo Housakos, in an interview with Duty. He maintains that the Liberal Party still directs the work of the Senate through the senators it appointed.
Himself a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, Senator Housakos predicts that senators close to the Liberals will try to amend the text in the coming month, which would have the effect of “killing the bill” by adding new deadlines in the House.
When an election is called, all bills that have not received royal assent go to the trash bin, including those before the Senate. This could theoretically happen this fall, when the work of the House of Commons has been at a standstill for two weeks and the minority Liberal government no longer has an ally in Parliament.
During an exchange in the Senate committee, the chairman of the committee, Peter Boehm, justified the delays by the fact that a study on Africa had to be discussed first. “If anyone has noticed, there are wars going on. We do our best. »
The leader of the Bloc Québécois, Yves-François Blanchet, does not appreciate that senators are taking all their time to examine his bill. “Two obtuse liberal senators — and obviously refractory to democracy — are preventing him from getting out of the Senate,” he railed Wednesday morning, referring to senators Boehm and Harder.
According to the sovereignist leader in Ottawa, even citizens who are not interested in agricultural issues should denounce the Senate “for this refusal of democracy.” For its part, the Liberal Party of Canada is “100% for supply management,” the Minister of National Revenue, Marie-Claude Bibeau, assured him in the House. His government ensures that the senators it has appointed are independent.
None of the other nine regular members of the Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade had responded to the Duty at the time these lines were written.