PM OFF BASE ON CRIME BILL, EXPERTS SAY

Senate Not Subject To Commons

PRIME Minister Stephen Harper's March 1 deadline to the Senate to pass
his violent crime bill has pitted partisan politics against Canada's
Constitution.

But even several constitutional experts think politics will
triumph.

The Liberal-dominated Senate is working overtime this week to try to
meet Harper's deadline -- imposed in a motion passed by the House of
Commons last week after the Liberals made a grand show of standing up
and walking out en masse in protest.

The bill draws together a number of measures imposing harsher
penalties for violent and repeat offenders, raising the age of consent
to 16 from 14 and establishing new testing for drug-impaired drivers.

The House of Commons passed it in November when the government made it
a vote of confidence. Last week, the Harper government pressured the
Senate to follow suit by threatening to see its failure to pass the
bill by March 1 as a vote of non-confidence in the government.

Liberal Sen. Joan Fraser, who chairs the legal affairs committee
dealing with the crime bill, said there are no guarantees the Senate
will be ready to vote before March 1.

"It's serious work we're doing," she said. "The more information we
get, the more questions we have."

But Fraser said she isn't feeling pressure to get it through and
called Harper's motion "wildly inappropriate."

"It is so far as I know utterly unprecedented for such an event to
occur," said Fraser. "I would love to be able to sit down with some
constitutional lawyers and get their views on it all, because the
Senate is its own master. We don't answer to the House of Commons or
indeed to the Prime Minister."

Constitutional experts are almost as flummoxed.

Peter Russell, a professor emeritus of political science at the
University of Torontosaid that politically the House of Commons can
try to bully the Senate to do what it wants, but it constitutionally
cannot force it to do anything.

"The issue really is can the failure of the Senate to do what Mr.
Harper's government wants justify him in saying he's been defeated in
a vote of non-confidence?" said Russell. "The Senate has never been
viewed and will never be viewed I hope as a confidence chamber."

He said if the Senate amends the bill, that would require the House of
Commons to vote on it again, which could become a vote of confidence.
But if there are no amendments, Harper would either have to introduce
another motion in the House or go to the Governor General and ask for
Parliament to be dissolved without a vote of non-confidence.

That, says Russell, could contravene Harper's own fixed-election-date
legislation, and would put Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean in a tough spot.
However, it's also hard, says Russell, to see a scenario where Jean
wouldn't call for an election.

Bryan Schwartz, University of Manitoba law professor and expert in
constitutional law, said some people may try to launch a
constitutional challenge about this, but he doesn't expect a court
would take it on because this is a political fight more than anything.

SENATE VS. HOUSE

THIS is not the first time there has been a battle of wills between a
Liberal-dominated Senate and a Tory Prime Minister.

In 1990, the senate moved to block passage of the controversial and
publicly-hated bill creating the GST.

Prime Minister Brian Mulroney then enacted a little known clause in
the Constitution allowing him to appoint eight new senators. That
addition gave the Tories a majority vote in the Senate and the GST
bill went through.

Harper can't follow Mulroney's route because the current Senate
make-up has the Liberals with 61 seats, and the Conservatives with 27.
There is one NDP and four independents.