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As a leader who is not the leader of a caucus that does not exist, he occupies a position not unlike that of the government on pipelines: less a cheerleader, more a referee. His job is to introduce bills in the Senate on behalf of the government, but since he is not part of the government he is in no way responsible for any of them. Senators who wish to ask questions of the government will instead be invited to buttonhole passing members of cabinet.

The leader-styled-the-representative has lately appointed a second in command, Diane Bellemare, though naturally she is neither his deputy leader nor his deputy representative, but his “legislative deputy.” As it happens, she is a Conservative, or was until last month, when she quit to become an independent, in hopes, as it was reported, of “organiz(ing) independent senators to give them more voice.” As an agent of the prime minister’s office, she now has the chance to live that dream.

The whip — whoops, the “government liaison” — meanwhile, is Grant Mitchell, a lifelong Liberal until Monday when he, too, left to become an independent. As government whip-styled-liaison, he will not whip the Liberal senators, as there are no Liberal senators, at least in the sense of Liberal senators, and if there were he is no longer among them. Rather his job will presumably be to enforce the non-party line on the independent senators. I anticipate some tense scenes in which they are ordered to vote exactly as they like, on pain of expulsion from a caucus to which they do not belong. Unless … well I was going to say unless he really is the government whip, and all this independence guff is just a charade. But one doesn’t want to be cynical.