Short answer: Yes, although not forever.

Even before the pot legalization bill landed on their doorstep, at least one Senate denizen was openly questioning whether the legislation would make it through the second round of parliamentary scrutiny in time to meet the government’s hoped-for July 2018 deadline.

In a Nov. 3 interview with CBC News, Independent Senator André Pratte (one of the first to arrive in the Upper House via the independent appointment process launched under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau) characterized the putative start date as a “political deadline” — one set by the government, not imposed by a court.

“We have to take it into account but we also have to do our job seriously and that’s what we’ll do,” he noted at the time.

Three weeks later, the bill was officially added to the Senate to-do list, but only clocked in an hour or so of second-reading debate before the chamber shut down for the holidays.

And while senators did eventually adopt the government’s Senate representative Peter Harder’s proposal to hold a rare televised Q&A session with the justice, health and public safety ministers, as well as parliamentary secretary Bill Blair, it was far from unanimous.

The Senate Conservatives had pushed for the invite list to be extended to include an additional four “key ministers,” but the amendment was defeated, albeit by just two votes, with several Senate Liberals voting with their colleagues across the aisle.

Taken in conjunction with Pratte’s pre-debate comments and the now predictable unpredictability of the independent-dominated Senate, it’s clear that the pot bill is unlikely to make it onto the Senate’s legislative fast-track. But how far could the newly emboldened Upper House push that July 2018 deadline?

For starters, they could simply kill off the plan entirely by defeating the bill, although that, too, seems highly unlikely — since 1941, the Senate has only invoked its collective power to deep-six government legislation duly passed by the Commons on three occasions.

Assuming that even this newly emboldened Senate isn’t prepared to take such a drastic step in asserting its independence, there are any number of ways that opponents of the bill can slow its progress through the pipeline to a glacial crawl, from prolonging second- and third-reading debate by making sure there’s always at least one senator in the queue to speak, as well as exerting the power to adjourn the debate before it expires.

When it does eventually make it through second reading, it will be up to the committee to decide how much time to spend on the fine print, a process that could drag on for weeks — or even months — depending on the number of witnesses called and amendments put forward.

Amendments can also be moved at third reading, which can add time to the clock. If even one were to pass, it would require that the bill be sent back to the House for re-approval, which, as we’ve seen more than once over the last year, can turn into a battle of wills between the two chambers.

That doesn’t mean Sen. Harder couldn’t counter such tactics with procedural levers. Like the Commons, the Senate has a mechanism for limiting debate on government business. Unlike his House counterpart, however, Harder can’t count on being able to command a majority of votes to support such a maneuver.

(And, in fact, has seen housekeeping motions go down to defeat in the past after he failed to persuade a sufficient number of independent senators to back him.)

When it comes to the crunch, the Senate has seemed distinctly reluctant to go to war with the Commons, even while maintaining that they have the constitutional right to do so. That, more than anything else, is probably what is keeping the government from hitting the panic button over the fate of the pot bill. Whether or not that’s a safe bet, however, remains to be seen.