Some time ago, the leader of an opposition party stood during question period and lamented that “unelected senators” had thwarted the “will of the House of Commons” by defeating a private member’s bill.
In response, the prime minister stood and expressed the government’s view that the bill, even though it had passed the House, was so deeply flawed it was “completely irresponsible.”
That is how Stephen Harper justified the move by Conservative senators to defeat C-311 — a climate change bill sponsored and supported by the NDP and its then-leader, Jack Layton, that had managed to pass the House because the Conservatives did not have
