So, much (much) earlier this morning, as I was musing and meandering over this latest move by the Master Strategician while attempting to unbrick not one but two Blackberries (no, you don’t want to ask), trying to figure out why – other than the obvious – it seemed so particularly deliciously ironic — until finally, I remembered: Senator Wilfrid Moore, the canny Nova Scotian senator who very nearly managed to amend the Parliament of Canada Act to force the PM to fill those empty seats whether he felt like it or not.
So, much (much) earlier this morning, as I was musing and meandering over this latest move by the Master Strategician while attempting to unbrick not one but two Blackberries (no, you don’t want to ask), trying to figure out why – other than the obvious – it seemed so particularly deliciously ironic — until finally, I remembered: Senator Wilfrid Moore, the canny Nova Scotian senator who very nearly managed to amend the Parliament of Canada Act to force the PM to fill those empty seats whether he felt like it or not.
By a twist of parliamentary fate, his proposal showed up at the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee just in time for the very first ITQ Senate Appreciation Week, which meant that I got to watch then-House Leader Peter Van Loan fume and froth over the horror of it all. ITQ was also on hand to see it sent back to the Senate without a single amendment. It eventually passed on division on May 29, 2008, whereupon it vanished into the netherworld between the two chambers, and was never seen again. I’m pretty sure, however, that Wilfrid Moore would have did, in fact cheerfully resuscitate it this fall had he been given the chance to do so — but it seems that the PM will finally heed the pleas of his party’s Senate caucus, rendering it unnecessary – for now. See, sometimes nagging-by-legislative-proposal does work!