Article content continued

Instead it will simply never come to a vote. The Senate rises for the summer June 23, not to return until after the election. That’s just six weeks from now: 18 sitting days, by the Senate’s leisurely calendar. If the bill is not passed by then, it dies, along with every other piece of legislation still on the order paper.

It should not be difficult to stall it until then. It’s already been three months — the bill was first introduced in the Senate March 10, having passed the Commons Feb. 25 — and they haven’t even got through second reading. The first speech in debate (by the bill’s sponsor, Conservative Sen. Scott Tannas) did not occur until April 23.

This is not by accident. The Senate leadership has many ways at its disposal to slow down a piece of legislation it does not want passed. And not only on the government side. Senators need not go to such unseemly lengths as a filibuster to pocket the bill. Rather than speak for hours on end, they can simply decline to speak at all.

Debate continues, after all, only when a senator rises to speak. And if, following a senator’s speech, another senator moves adjournment, debate is again put on hold, until such time as another senator rises. In this way, a bill can be debated almost indefinitely, without ever being put to a vote.

That’s exactly what’s been happening to the Reform Act. The first Liberal to speak on the bill, Sen. Joan Fraser, did not get to her feet until May 7, two months after its introduction; a motion to adjourn quickly followed. It has not been debated since.