Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - January 23, 2015, Winnipeg, Manitoba C M Y K PAGE A9 IDEAS �o ISSUES �o INSIGHTS THINK- TANK A 9 Winnipeg Free Press Friday, January 23, 2015 O TTAWA - If a Manitoba senator retires in Ottawa, does anyone take notice? For five months now, since the resignation of Conservative JoAnne Buth in August, Manitoba has had just half its usual complement of senators sitting in the upper chamber in Parliament. Her seat has not been filled. Neither have those that belonged to Liberal Rod Zimmer or Conservative Terry Stratton, who left in 2013, or any of the 14 other vacancies across the country that have cropped up since 2013. Added to the three empty seats due to the suspensions of former Conservatives Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin and Patrick Brazeau in the expense scandal, and nearly a fifth of the seats in the upper chamber will remain empty when the Senate resumes sitting on Tuesday. If Prime Minister Stephen Harper is to be believed, they will stay that way for the foreseeable future. " I don't think I'm getting a lot of calls from Canadians to name more senators right about now," he said in early December. He was, of course, referring to the fact the Senate is not in high esteem at the moment, embroiled as it is in the expense scandal that has left Duffy, Brazeau and former Liberal Mac Harb facing charges of fraud and breach of trust and has the federal auditor general examining every expense receipt in great detail. When a seat in the House of Commons becomes vacant, Harper has to call a byelection within six months for it to be filled. When a seat in the Senate is vacated, Harper can leave it empty for as long as he likes. The expenses scandal isn't likely Harper's first choice of an excuse to leave the Senate seats vacant, especially since three of his appointees are at the centre of it and his former chief of staff got yanked in for offering to cut a cheque to cover Duffy's phoney expense claims. But being able to let the Senate wither fits into what some have thought a masterful plan by Harper to demonstrate the Senate needs to be reformed. It didn't start out that way. Harper ran on a campaign pledge to reform the Senate, promising to enact term limits and not appoint any senators who were not elected. Between 2006 and 2008, he only appointed two senators. But in 2008, when the Senate had 18 vacancies and attempts at reform were falling flat amid concerns they could not be done without constitutional change, Harper changed his mind and filled the vacancies. And then he filled some more. And then some more. Between 2008 and 2013, he named 59 senators to the upper chamber. The appointments were so loaded with wellknown Conservatives ( including 10 failed Conservative candidates for the House of Commons, the former campaign chair, party president and Harper's own former press secretary), it prompted the opposition to dub Harper the " Senate patronage king." All 59 of them were appointed to the Conservative benches. In short, he did exactly what he used to rail against the Liberals for doing. He even rivals Jean Chr�tien, who in a decade in office appointed 75 senators, all but three of them Liberals, and many of them party staff, fundraisers and campaign chairs. Harper's appointments were sold by his people as a way to gain the upper hand in the Senate so the Liberals could no longer hold the Conservatives' agenda hostage with their Senate majority. After 59 appointments, Harper now has 52 seats in the Senate to the Liberals' 30. ( Last year Liberal leader Justin Trudeau removed the Liberal senators from his caucus and they now technically sit as independent Liberals.) But in doing so, Harper has also shown exactly how easy it is to stack the Senate with your cronies and get them to do your bidding. In short, he's proven quite deftly that without term limits or elections, the Senate may as well be a rubber- stamp club for the party in power. He may still fill the empty seats, especially if he fears he might lose the next election to the Liberals and hand Trudeau not just the keys to 24 Sussex, but the ability to take back control of the Senate in just a few months. If he does, he will have appointed more senators than all but three other prime ministers - John A. MacDonald, Wilfrid Laurier and William Lyon Mackenzie King. But no doubt, he will prove once again how desperately the Senate needs to be reformed. Mia Rabson is the Free Press parliamentary bureau chief in Ottawa. mia. rabson@ freepress. mb. ca MIA RABSON Manitoba Senate seats sit empty W INNIPEG was unwillingly thrust into the national spotlight Thursday with allegations our race problems are the ugliest in Canada - a circumstance that, sadly, other Manitoba communities have found themselves in before. I grew up in Opaskwayak Cree Nation near The Pas in the long shadow of Helen Betty Osborne's murder. The national scrutiny that followed, including the film Conspiracy of Silence and ongoing media coverage, permeated both communities. Many years later, during my childhood and adolescence, we all still experiencing the stain left behind in the aftermath of the nation pointing its collective finger and blaming racism for the justice that was denied the Osborne family. Many people were offended at the suggestion, while others, especially in the First Nations community, knew racism was real and a part of the collective story. As that eventual acknowledgement and acceptance spread, members from both communities began to look for opportunities to support each other in addressing the problem. There were unity marches, outreach activities and eventually, weekly meetings between leaders of both First Nations and non- aboriginal communities. The result - after four decades - is relationships have been nurtured over time and progress made. Today in OCN and The Pas, not only can you see more harmonious relationships between the two communities on a personal level, you can also see the strengthened economy, community infrastructure and services that come from working together as municipal and First Nations governments in partnership. Today, Winnipeg faces similar negative scrutiny from national media, and many are asking how we got to this place. The more important question is: Can we get past this and, as they did in The Pas and OCN, forge relationships and a stronger community out of a challenging situation? If the gathering of nearly 40 community leaders Thursday, brought together quickly by Mayor Brian Bowman, is any indication, I would say there is a path back for us and an opportunity to accelerate the work already underway by so many different groups, individuals and organizations. Every day there are leaders in this city, both aboriginal and non- aboriginal, who get up and work to build bridges, forge relationships and make things better for our families and neighbourhoods. They are in our schools and places of worship, in cultural organizations and social agencies, in our governments and even our workplaces. And just as importantly, there are people I call the silent majority. The First Nations mothers and fathers who toil day and in day out to get their children to school and hockey practice on time. Parents who contribute to the economy, care deeply about their city and want to be a part of and proud of its vibrant future. I've seen in my home community how much time is required before we see things start to change, and we can expect that here in Winnipeg as well. That's why it is especially important that we start preparing our children now to understand what the original treaty relationship was all about and to look for the opportunities to put it into practice in the way we treat each other. I'm proud of the partners we have been able to bring together to give parents and teachers, across Winnipeg and Manitoba, important educational tools through the Treaty Education Initiative. The K- 12 teacher resource packages and related materials are already changing the way our young people interact with each other by ensuring they better understand the history we all share in Manitoba. Through this understanding comes acceptance and tolerance and through tolerance, respect. Is it any wonder I feel so confident that the coming generations, in our schools today, will be the leaders of tomorrow who will help lead us through some of our greatest challenges of today? There is more to Winnipeg's story, and I know there are more opportunities to show it as I believe we live in a city we can be proud of - one that recognizes its problems and reaches out to its citizens to help solve them, working together as one. In the final analysis, I truly believe we can replace racism with respect, oppression with opportunity and hurt with healing. Based on the original values of the treaties, this is the way forward for our community and our children, and we must continue to act on it, together. James Wilson is commissioner of the Treaty Relations Commission of Manitoba, a neutral body mandated to encourage discussion, facilitate public understanding and enhance mutual respect between all peoples in Manitoba. Twitter: @ JamesBWilson_ S EVERAL recent opinion polls indicate a majority of Americans supports the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline to transport Canadian oilsands crude through the United States to refineries in Texas. Nonetheless, U. S. President Barack Obama refuses to be swayed or pressured into approving it. He continues to question the economic viability of the project and has heeded the opposition to the pipeline from environmentalists, almost all of whom are Democrats. Thus no matter that yet another pro- Keystone XL bill has been passed by the House of Representatives and is certain to shortly pass through the Senate - both now controlled by the Republicans - officials at the White House have declared the president will use his veto power to block the legislation. Under the U. S. Constitution, a two- thirds vote in the two houses is required to override the presidential veto, and the Republican majority is not that large in either the House or the Senate. The veto is a significant part of the president's power under the U. S. system of checks and balances that governs relations between the legislative, judiciary and executive branches. Under the provisions of the U. S. Constitution, a president can return a bill to Congress within 10 days with a " veto message" explaining why he ( or she) cannot sign the bill under consideration. If the president does not sign the bill, yet does not return it within 10 days, the bill automatically passes. However, if Congress has adjourned within the 10- day period, and a president does not sign a bill, the bill is effectively vetoed in what is known as the " pocket veto." Unlike a regular veto, a pocket veto cannot be overridden since Congress is not in session. In contrast to many other veto- happy presidents, Obama in more than six years has only used his presidential veto on two occasions. George Washington also only used his veto power twice, the first time on April 5, 1792, to stop a bill that would have permitted northern ( and anti- slave) states to have more seats in the House of Representatives. Since then, over a 222- year period, presidents have used the regular veto a total of 1,496 times and the pocket veto 1,066 times for a grand total of 2,563. A trio of Democrats: Grover Cleveland, Franklin D. Roosevelt ( who was president for an unprecedented 12 years) and his successor, Harry Truman, were together responsible for 1,469 of the total vetoes exercised by all presidents. John Tyler, president from 1841 to 1845, was the first president to have his veto overridden by Congress on March 3, 1845. Tyler was an unpopular president ( and a slave owner). Tyler had many disagreements with Congress and used his regular veto six times and his pocket veto four times. Finally, close to the end of his term, Congress was able to override his veto on minor legislation involving revenue cutters ( later the U. S. Coast Guard). This did not establish a precedent, however. Since 1845, Congress has only been able to override presidential vetoes 108 more times. It seems anti- democratic that one person, even the president of the United States, should be able to wield such power. Yet in the 1780s, the framers of the U. S. Constitution, who lived in a world in which kings and queens were sacred, believed such power was integral to the office - though with limitations. George III had been denounced by Thomas Jefferson in the American Declaration of Independence as a " tyrant," but it was a long process from 1763 onward before the American colonists, who were more apt to blame the British Parliament for their troubles than their revered monarch, lost faith in the king. During the constitutional convention in Philadelphia in 1787, the framers spent considerable time debating the president's powers. Some of the delegates saw the veto as a necessary safeguard against the potential abuse of the legislative branch; others like Roger Sherman of Connecticut opposed it. Sherman did not believe " one man" should be able " to stop the will of the whole," nor could such a person be found " far above all the rest in wisdom." But Sherman lost the argument, and ultimately the presidential veto with the two- thirds Congressional vote required to override it was entrenched in the constitution. The historical irony was the veto, along with the power to pardon and control patronage, the founding fathers, argues Frank Prochaska " invested more power in the presidency than George III exercised as king." At the same time, since the 22nd amendment to the U. S. Constitution was ratified in 1951 ( initiated in 1947 by the Republican- controlled Congress bitter about FDR's 12 years in office) no president can serve for more than two four- year terms. Hence, even if Obama continues to veto Keystone XL, supporters of the pipeline only have to wait until early 2017 to see how his successor feels about it. Now & Then is a column in which historian Allan Levine puts the events of today in a historical context. NOW & THEN ALLAN LEVINE Veto- power use significant in U. S. history JAMES WILSON Racism part of our collective story MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs Grand Chief Derek Nepinak addresses the media on racism in Winnipeg at city hall Thursday with Winnipeg Mayor Brian Bowman. A_ 1 1_ Jan- 23- 15_ FP_ 01. indd A9 1/ 22/ 15 8: 29: 59 PM ;