Senator concerned by lack of seat appointment

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This article was published 25/09/2017 (2995 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — A senator has joined calls for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to fill the last remaining Manitoba seat in the upper chamber as the Senate tackles numerous issues affecting the province.

“We are functioning short of what our requirement is,” said Sen. Murray Sinclair, who himself is taking on a temporary role outside the Senate. “They’d never wait for this long to hold a byelection, if it were a member of Parliament.”

Trudeau entered office in fall 2015 with four Manitoba vacancies, months before a fifth senator retired. He soon launched an advisory process in which Canadians over 30 can apply for Senate seats and bureaucrats present a short list to the prime minister.

In April 2016, Trudeau filled two of Manitoba’s vacancies, and in October 2016 he appointed three Manitobans to fill the remaining seats. But prospective senator Harvey Chochinov declined the role in February, citing personal reasons.

Sinclair said he is concerned because there appears to be no movement on replacing Chochinov.

“In the Senate, we have a very significant role to play in representing territorial interests, and Manitoba’s interests are among them,” he said.

He cited the loss of the railroad to Churchill, the recent fires near Island Lake and cuts in health services for Manitobans.

The Senate will also tackle marijuana legalization, which Manitoba has raised strong concerns about, as well as changes to the Indian Act that would likely see thousands of Manitobans gain Indian status.

“Right now, we don’t have the full quota of bodies that we need.”

David Smith, a Saskatchewan scholar who specializes in parliamentary issues, has said Manitoba has been entitled to six Senate seats since 1905 in order to not be “swamped” by larger provinces in votes, unlike the Commons which allocates MPs by population. But Manitoba’s six seats haven’t all been filled since 2013.

The Privy Council won’t say whether it will draw from 145 Manitobans who applied last August to present suggestions to Trudeau, or instead kick off another months-long application process. Instead, it repeated on Friday a summer statement that announcements “will be made in due course.”

Sinclair is puzzled at the lack of a straight answer. “I would’ve thought that they’d have an ability to move on to the next name on the list.”

The Senate has increasingly shaped legislation since Trudeau removed Liberal appointees from party command. Last spring, senators almost stalled the budget bill into the summer break, and they’re amending bills at a rate unseen in recent memory.

More recently, Senate sources say talks are ongoing to redistribute committees in October, to possibly give Independent senators chair and vice-chair positions. That could mean Manitobans steering legislation through hearings and amendments.

Manitoba’s Senate shortfall comes as Sinclair takes on other duties. He’s leading an investigation into the Thunder Bay Police Services Board’s oversight into how police in that Ontario city treat the deaths of young Indigenous people.

His task, which was announced July 24, will culminate with a report in March.

“I had a very long discussion with the Senate ethics office about mainlining separation between those two roles,” said Sinclair, who chaired the recent Truth and Reconciliation Commission into residential schools and co-led Manitoba’s Aboriginal Justice Inquiry in 1991.

Sinclair said he accepted the job on the condition that others would do “the bulk of the footwork” such as interviewing people in the community. His probe looks at oversight of the police, but it’s separate from an investigation of how officers handled specific cases.

“They understood that I was a senator, and that I would have limited amount of time to give to it,” said Sinclair, who intends to vote regularly and appear on Senate committees.

“It adds to the burden of my work, there’s no question about that. But I thought, when I was asked to do it, that it was an important responsibility that had to be done.”

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca