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There’s a long history of governing parties expressing outrage at their own senators for showing some independence of thought.

In 1993, Brian Mulroney was upset at Tory senators who defeated one of his government’s bills: “I thought it was instructive that some Conservatives, who had implored me on bended knee for appointments to the Senate, and assured me of undying loyalty to the government agenda, would, without so much as a by-your-leave … go the other way,” he said.

That tension has always been with us — but it has been raised yet higher by the recent Senate expenses scandal.

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The bill’s sponsor in the House of Commons, Conservative MP Russ Hiebert, released a statement afterward saying the amendments “have the effect of gutting C-377.”

The changes included increasing the mandatory disclosure on union spending from $5,000, as initially proposed, to more than $150,000. Similarly, mandatory salary disclosure increased from $100,000 to $444,000. And the bill will now only apply to unions with 50,000 members or more.

In a separate statement, Harper spokesman Andrew MacDougall said: “We continue to support union transparency and the principles of the bill, which will be returned to the House as part of the normal process.”

MacDougall didn’t say what next steps the government would take, but he warned that “as per Parliamentary convention, we expect that the Senate will respect the will of the House ofCommons should the bill be returned to the Senate.”