Conservative Sen. Don Plett insists Prime Minister Stephen Harper has not ordered the Red Chamber to shut down Tory MP Michael Chong's controversial Reform Act.

Speaking to CTV's Question Period, Plett rejected any suggestions that Harper has ordered Conservative senators to quash the bill.

"Absolutely not," said Plett. "I haven't discussed this bill with the prime minister."

Chong's bill is currently stalled in the Senate, three months after the House of Commons passed it. The bill, heavily amended in the House, calls for a rebalancing of power between MPs and their party leaders. More specifically, it would:

- Remove the veto power of party leaders over who can run in federal elections.

- Give MPs the power to suspend and re-admit colleagues, and to select their caucus chair.

- Allow MPs to trigger a leadership review vote in their caucus.

For years, Chong has taken interest in the democratic reform file, leading to his Reform Act. But now it's looking like the bill won't make it through the Senate for approval before this session of Parliament ends.

Last week in a Senate committee, Conservative and some Liberal senators expressed their opposition to the legislation, signaling more amendments may be on the way. With less than one month left in this sitting and a looming election campaign that will dissolve Parliament in the fall, Chong's bill doesn’t have much time left for approval.

But Chong is still hopeful his bill will pass, given the fact that Harper, NDP Leader Tom Mulcair and Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau supported it.

"I take the prime minister and the cabinet at their word," said Chong. "I also worked with the critics of the bill and we came forward with a series of amendments that were mutually acceptable to everybody."

He's now putting pressure on the Senate to pass his bill before June.

"The Reform Act concerns only the House of Commons and how the House of Commons caucuses are to operate and how members are to be elected to the House of Commons. And I think the Senate needs to respect that foundational constitutional principal and pass the bill before the end of June.”

While Chong argues the bill only concerns the House of Commons, Plett says senators, as members of their political party, have reason to be concerned.

"When Mr. Chong says that we don't have any play in this, as a member of the Conservative Party of Canada, I have a large play in who my leader is, as do members of the Liberal Party and members of the NDP," said Plett.

The issue that Plett and some senators are taking with the bill is a provision that would allow 20 per cent of MPs in a party caucus to trigger a leadership review vote; a majority of MPs could then vote to replace the leader with an interim leader. Plett, who spent seven years as the Conservative Party president, argues that since leaders get elected by party members, they -- not MPs -- should also be able to remove a leader.

"In the Liberals' case, eight people could trigger a leadership review and 19 people could remove the leader," said Plett.

But Chong says the bill returns power to MPs so they regain control over the governance of their caucus. The bill, he says, would essentially ensure that when leaders, like former Alberta Progressive Conservative leader Alison Redford, lose the confidence or support of the majority of their caucus, they are removed.

A similar measure exists in the U.K., where former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher was removed by members of her party in 1990.

Even if the Senate continues to block the bill, Chong, a self-admitting "proud Conservative," says he will stick with the party.

"(The bill) reflects the best of the democratic reform tradition of the Conservative Party. It also reflects the fundamental Conservative beliefs about the supremacy of Parliament," said Chong.

So, does the bill have a chance in the Senate? Plett refused to say, reinforcing the Upper Chamber's role as Parliament’s home of sober second thought.

"If we find issues in a bill that we believe are not in the best interest of Canadians, we have an obligation, we have a duty, to perform -- and that is to try to amend or correct legislation," said Plett. "I sincerely hope that we will vote on this."

With files from the Canadian Press