Senators raise election risk by derailing Bloc ultimatum

Photo: Adrian Wyld Archives The Canadian Press Sen. Peter Boehm is openly opposed to Bill C-282.

As if the situation in Ottawa wasn’t tense enough, the senator responsible for studying a bill that is listed as a condition of the Trudeau government’s survival in the fall finally admitted Wednesday that he doesn’t plan to pass the bill by the Bloc Québécois’ deadline.

Appointed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau after a career as an ambassador, Sen. Peter Boehm is openly opposed to Bill C-282, which proposes to protect supply management for milk, poultry and eggs in future trade negotiations.

He expressed his disapproval of the idea at a meeting of a Senate committee that he chairs in late September. “It’s not in Canada’s interest,” he said of the text approved by elected officials from all parties in Ottawa in 2023.

However, on the very day that Mr. Boehm made these comments, 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 states that the bill must receive royal assent by October 29, or the Bloc will support motions to bring down the government, triggering new federal elections.

After twice refusing his interview requests, Le Devoirwent straight to meet with Senator Boehm at the entrance to a Senate committee on Wednesday afternoon. He confirmed that Bill C-282 will not leave committee until November. He added, nonchalantly, that he is not at all concerned about the risk of an election that this timetable creates. “We have a way here of working with private members’ bills. It’s different here, we have our process.”

Fifteen months in the Senate

The deputy chair of the committee, Senator Peter Harder, would not comment further on the matter on Wednesday. “Any questions about the committee's schedule should be directed to the Senate communications staff responsible for the Foreign Affairs Committee,” his assistant Renee Allen responded in English to Devoir.

Senator Harder, also appointed by Justin Trudeau, was even his representative in the Senate between April 2016 and January 2020. A former deputy minister of Foreign Affairs, he mocked Bloc Québécois MP Yves Perron on September 25, when the latter came to defend his private member’s bill before senators.

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“Are you saying that other sectors — the automobile sector, the steel sector or other agricultural sectors — should also have a hand in the department’s bill ??” the senator asked, before interrupting the answer with a “you are special.”

Bill C-282, which would add a supply management section to the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Act, was passed 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 indefinitely.

Read also

• The Bloc Québécois is ready to bring down the Trudeau government after October 29
• Pierre Poilievre files a first motion to bring down the government

Failed ultimatum

“One thing is for sure, the Bloc Québécois' request, the Trudeau government is laughing at that. On October 29, forget it,” says Quebec Conservative Senator Leo Housakos, in an interview with Devoir. He maintains that the Liberal Party still runs the Senate's work 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 delays in the House.

When an election is called, all bills that have not received Royal Assent are sent to the trash, including those before the Senate. This could theoretically happen as early as this fall, with the House of Commons having been at a standstill for two weeks and the minority Liberal government no longer having any allies in Parliament.

During an exchange in the Senate committee, the committee chair, Peter Boehm, justified the delays by saying that a study on Africa had to be discussed first. “If anyone has noticed, there are wars going on. We’re doing our best.”

Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet does not appreciate senators taking their time examining his bill. “Two obtuse liberal senators — and clearly anti-democracy senators — are preventing it from being removed from the Senate,” he fumed 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 assures that the senators it has appointed are independent.

None of the nine other regular members of the Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade had responded to the Devoir at the time of writing.