Liberals support Trudeau’s decision to boot senators from caucus

MONTREAL – Liberals have voted overwhelmingly to support leader Justin Trudeau’s decision to kick senators out of caucus.

But not everyone is happy about the way it went down.

One delegate from Okanagan said the process – which effectively makes an interim change to the party’s constitution before it can be amended at the next convention in 2016 – was not in the spirit of open government.

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“I’m totally supportive of making the Senate non-partisan. My concern is the way the party members were asked to suspend their constitution,” said Doug McDonald.

“It’s not democratic. It’s what goes on in the Ukraine. It’s what goes on in Russia.”

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McDonald was one of 32 people who voted against the resolution, which was broken down into three parts. It passed 525 to 32 votes.

Crafted by the party’s national board of directors and called a “sense of convention,” the resolution needed 50 per cent to pass.

The motion stated:

1. That Liberals support Trudeau’s decision that only MPs serve as caucus members.
2. That the national board of directors determine at the next party biennial convention how to amend the constitution.
3. That the board of directors interpret the constitution in the interim to reflect the new composition of caucus.

“I just think it is not in the spirit of open government, to effectively suspend a clause of our constitution,” said McDonald.

Liberal MP Ralph Goodale stood in support of the motion

“Because of the courage and intelligence of the leaders’ decision, the fact of the matter is Justin Trudeau accomplished more Senate reform in one morning than Stephen Harper has accomplished in eight years,” he said to huge applause.

Senator James Cowan said he abstained from the vote because he disagreed with the wording of the third part, but agrees that senators should be “more independent.”

“I think everybody supports the leader’s decision, and senators should be independent. The Senate should be independent. All of that’s good,” he said.

“We’re still Liberal senators. We’re members of the Liberal party.”