Hot-tempered Conservative senators’ actions over lightning rod Bill C-234 constituted intimidation, the Senate speaker ruled yesterday.
“Senators have explained how they felt threatened and intimidated in the performance of their duties, here where we should model the best behaviour for our fellow citizens,” said speaker Raymonde Gagné in her decision yesterday.
The question of privilege, raised by Senator Raymond Saint-Germain on Nov. 21, relates to incidents on Nov. 9 when, after debate over an amendment to Bill C-234 was abruptly adjourned, Saint-Germain alleged that Conservative Senator Don Plett confronted her and Senator Bernadette Clement. Bill C-234 proposed to exempt farm fuels for grain drying, barn and greenhouse heating from the carbon price.
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“After violently throwing his earpiece, (Plett) stood before Senator Clement and me as we sat at our desks, yelling and berating us for proposing this routine motion that would see debate resume the following week, when we returned,” Saint-Germain said.
Plett later acknowledged he had lost his temper and tearfully apologized before the Senate.
Saint-Germain also said, “at least two” Conservative senators retweeted a post on social media platform X “that not only spread misinformation about the proceedings but encouraged members of the public to call and harass” Clement and Senator Chantal Petitclerc, adding that it “elicited high volumes of threatening phone calls and emails to these independent senators.”
In her decision, which she read in the Senate, Gagné added that some Senators were threatened with other penalties if they did not “give way and concede to a particular outcome.” This included threats of blocking work in committee or the chamber.
“All these events can be understood as attempts to intimidate colleagues and to unduly constrain, or even extract retribution against them in the performance of their duties,” Gagné said.
Following the decision, Gagné read a motion, tabled by Senator Raymonde Saint-Germain, for the question of privilege to be referred to the Senate’s ethics committee. The motion went to debate, which adjourned before a vote.
On Nov. 21, following Saint-Germain’s question of privilege, Conservative Senator David Wells then put forward a separate question of privilege stemming from the same Nov. 9 sitting, saying Moncion had “walked over from her seat and accused me of bullying” after the session was suspended.
Moncion replied that she was not threatening in her approach but apologized to Wells and the chamber. Wells said he considered the issue closed.
Yesterday, the Senate voted by a narrow margin to amend Bill C-234 to remove barn and greenhouse heating from the bill. Fuels for grain drying remain exempted in the bill.
The bill was then put up for debate ahead of a third reading. Debate adjourned before it could go to a vote, and will likely resume today.
Farm groups and Senators aligned with the bill have said they fear an amendment, which will likely send the bill back to the House of Commons for further debate, will essentially kill the bill.
–Geralyn Wichers is associate digital editor of AGCanada.com. She writes from southeastern Manitoba.
