Article content

At time of writing, Bill C-44, legislation enacting the federal budget, had yet to come to a vote in the House of Commons. Its passage was nevertheless assured: a formality, in fact, for any government with a majority.

On the other hand the bill is reported to be in some jeopardy in the Senate, where senators are threatening to rewrite it, specifically to split off the controversial infrastructure bank for separate consideration.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Andrew Coyne: Our unelected Senate has no business rewriting federal budgets Back to video

This has things exactly backwards. It is the elected representatives of the people in the House of Commons to whom the government is supposed to be answerable. It is they who should be proposing amendments, and it is their support the government should have to court.

The Senate, by contrast, is elected by no one, accountable to no one; as such it has no business amending or defeating anything, let alone a budget bill. Yet that, incredibly, is where we are now. Should the Senate amend it, and should the government reject its amendments, it is conceivable the government could be without a budget.