Article content continued

Senate Liberal insiders told Postmedia News no one within the caucus had any idea the announcement was coming. The now-former Liberal senators were scrambling to figure out what to do, a source said.

Their fate initially appeared confused. Ex-Liberal leader of the Senate James Cowan said he and his colleagues were “comfortable” with the decision to leave the Liberal caucus – but Cowan also said the 32 will remain Liberal senators, just without the requirement of conforming to the party’s wishes.

“We are the Senate Liberal caucus and I will remain the leader of the opposition and we will remain the official opposition in the Senate,” he told reporters.

He said the only change is that he and his colleagues “will not need to be concerned any more about the real or perceived direction from the national Liberal caucus.”

The confusion allowed Stephen Harper to slough off Trudeau’s challenge to the prime minister to follow the Liberal lead and similarly cut loose the 57 Conservative senators.

“I gather the change announced by the leader today is that unelected Liberal senators will become unelected senators who happen to be Liberal,” Harper scoffed in the Commons.

He called Cowan’s assertion that not much will change “the understatement of the year” and said Canadians want an elected Senate, not “a better unelected Senate.”

Trudeau, in making his announcement earlier in the day, said “If the Senate serves a purpose at all, it is to act as a check on the extraordinary power of the prime minister and his office, especially in a majority government.”