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A card-carrying Liberal staffer who sent me a copy of the text by email noted, in passing, that he had "never seen such a partisan press release on a Government website." On that, he may or may not be right, but what I can say with some certainty, is that it's one of the more disingenuous ministerial statements that I've seen in some time, at least as far as its central thesis -- namely, that opposition obstructionists in the Senate are responsible for thwarting his legislative endeavours. 

That is, quite simply, not the case, no matter how many times he -- or anyone else -- insists that it is.  To shamelessly copy and paste, with minor editing for coherency, from an earlier post on this very subject:

Out of 62 bills introduced in the Commons, 30 received Royal Assent. (I didn't count the CN back to work legislation, since was mooted when the strike ended without intervention.) The tally for government bills in the Senate is similar, with three out of seven bills getting the nod from the Crown, for a final total of 33 out of 69, or just 48 percent -- which, if it were a grade, would be a failing one.

Curse that unelected, unaccountable Upper House? Sure, go ahead, if it makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside, but it would seem that very few of the 35 now-at-least-temporarily defunct bills were actually victims of a stubbornly obstructionist Other Place. Three, to be precise: the oft-cited consumer safety bill (C-6), and the drug sentencing bill (C-15), both of which did manage to make it to third reading in the Senate, but which were saddled with amendments that the government has preemptively - and forcefully - rejected.

C-26 (auto theft), which was sent to Legal and Constitutional Affairs at the end of October, where it remains -- or remained until prorogation -- under consideration.  [As for] C-36, the Serious Time for the Most Serious Crime, it began debate at second reading in the Senate on December 3, but was adjourned immediately following the opening speech by its sponsor -- Senator Claude Carignan -- and wasn't called again.(As in the Commons, in the Senate, it is the government that decides which bills will be brought forward for debate, so the fact that it wasn't can't be blamed on the opposition.)

Meanwhile, over in the Commons, a whopping seventeen bills have yet to make it through second reading, eight had been referred to committee, and an additional two were reported back just before the House rose for the holidays. (What's the hold up at committee, you ask? Turns out that's what happens when you send nearly every bill -- all but two of those still outstanding, to be precise -- to one of two committees; as a result, both Justice and Public Safety have ended up with a bit of a backlog.)

The rest are -- or were -- in limbo, awaiting report stage debate or third reading, the timing of which was entirely within the government's power. After all, with the exception of opposition days, it's the Government House Leader who sets the legislative agenda.

For those of you who glazed over midway through, here's the scorecard for the 21 criminal justice bills introduced during the last session:  The vast majority -- 15, to be specific -- were still before the House of Commons at the time of prorogation -- six at committee, nine awaiting second reading. Of the six remaining bills, three were in the Senate -- although one had passed third reading, albeit with amendments -- and just three had made it all the way to Royal Assent. 

Or, for an even simpler breakdown: 15/3/3. Wouldn't that make a lovely pie chart? Well, less lovely if you happen to be in charge of writing the government's anti-Senate talking points, of course, but still.  

As for the one bill cited specifically in the news release -- the infamous C-15, the alleged "gutting" of which has become the stuff of legend  -- well, as I explained in subsequent post, if the prime minister hadn't had the bright idea to prorogue parliament while it was stuck in limbo between the Senate and the House, C-15 could have been brought back at the stage that it had reached when Parliament adjourned for the holidays. At that point the House could have rejected the amendments and sent it back to the Senate in its original form, whereupon it would almost certainly have passed, given the boosted ranks of the government caucus, and could have received Royal Assent within days. But due to the lack of a similar provision in the Senate to allow for the restoration of legislation from the previous session, however, the minister will have start all over again. 

UPDATE: Ooh, apparently the minister is going to give that new plurality a test run by re-introducing C-15 -- in its original form -- in the Senate instead of the House. Which at first sounds like a brilliant strategic move - that is, unless you've paid enough attention to the Upper House over the years to know that if there's one thing its denizens hate, it's being treated like a rubber stamp for the government, regardless of the party in power, but that's a post in itself -- but it also means that the Senate-approved version of C-15 may end up languishing in the queue with all those other justice bills that never seem to make it past second reading. Which means that if it dies on a future Order Paper, he won't even be able to pretend to blame the Senate for dragging its heels. 

(Perhaps next time, the newly ascended Senator Runciman will take those procedural details into account before encouraging the PM to prorogue.) 

On the plus side, at least neither Nicholson nor his new senatorial colleagues blamed the Senate for stonewalling the Truth in Sentencing Act. That may well have sent me right over the brink.