Consumer safety and anti-drug laws: Lost in legislative limbo?

"We will  reintroduce in their original form the consumer safety law (Bill C-6)  and the anti-drug-crime law (Bill C-15) that the Ignatieff Liberals  gutted," the anonymous drafter thundered -- or, more accurately, offered up for thundering purposes to the MPs and party supporters on the mailing list. 

 What he -- or she -- failed to mention was that by proroguing parliament last week, the prime minister has made the ungutting of those bills considerably trickier -- or, at least, potentially time consuming -- than it otherwise would have been.

Here's the deal: When the House rose on December 10th, both bills were still before the Senate, which -- as is almost always the case at the end of a session -- sat for a few days longer in order to deal with whatever legislative loose ends the government wanted to tie up before the break. Among those bits of business were the two bills in question, which the Upper House proceeded to debate, amend -- or, if you prefer the PM's term, "gut" -- and pass before heading off on holidays. 

A bit of procedural background -- only a bit, and I promise it will be painless: when the Senate amends a bill at third reading, it isn't simply added to the stack of legislation awaiting Royal Assent. Instead, the Senate issues an order for the Usher of the Black Rod to send a message to the House of Commons " ...to acquaint that House that the Senate has passed this bill, with certain amendments, to which it desires its concurrence."

But what happens if the House has already adjourned, and there's no one there to receive it? 

Well, if the House returned on January 25th, as scheduled, those messages would be waiting in the Commons inbox, and printed in the Journal the next day. The House would then proceed to concur in, or reject, those amendments -- which is done through a non-debatable motion, which means no lengthy debate. If, as would have been the case with these particular bills, the amendments were rejected, the bill would be sent back to the Senate in its original form. 

Although at that point the Senate could, in theory, simply re-amend the bill and throw it back to the Commons, setting off what could turn into infinite legislative loop, with those five (or thirteen) additional Conservative votes in the Red Chamber, both bills would have almost certainly have survived a second attempt at sober second tweaking, and could have been given Royal Assent within days. If the two Houses are truly deadlocked over how to proceed, either Chamber can request a conference -- which hasn't been done since 1947, and only rarely before then -- in which designated senators and MPs get together to try to resolve the dispute. 

But because the House was prorogued before the messages could be officially received, the bills were still technically before the Senate, which has no mechanism, automatic or on demand, for reinstatement of government legislation from the previous Order Paper.