The Senators' Rebellion

The somnolent Canadian Senate ordinarily stirs so little excitement that when newsmen turned up to hear the Senators ruminate on a new tariff bill last May, they had to hunt up the key to the press gallery. Last week the normally docile Senate, in an explosive rebellion against Prime Minister John Diefenbaker's Tory government, defiantly rejected a Tory bill to fire the Bank of Canada's Governor James E. Coyne. Considering himself thus vindicated in his own bitter falling out with the government, and knowing that his usefulness was over anyway, Coyne forthwith resigned as manager of the country's money supply. But for the Senators the price of rebellion came high. It left Diefenbaker with little choice but to call a general election--probably in the fall--on the issue of reforming the archaic, appointive Senate to ensure its responsiveness to the will of Canada's elected government.

Diefenbaker's five-year term of office extends until 1963, but, as in the British system, he can go to the country whenever he sees an opportune time to renew his mandate.

In the House of Commons Diefenbaker has the largest majority (205 Tories, 50 Liberals, ten others) ever held by a Canadian Prime Minister. But the 102-member Senate is controlled by opposition Senators appointed to life terms during Ottawa's long years (1935-57) of Liberal rule. The P.M. himself set the stage by angrily warning the Senate majority against tampering with measures passed by the Tory Commons. It was not a challenge to take lightly. Rarely in modern times has the Senate defied any government in power--most notably in 1926 when it rejected Prime Minister Mackenzie King's old-age pensions bill.

Not Guilty. The Liberals were emboldened by the knowledge that 1961 had been a year of economic and political problems for Diefenbaker. When Tory M.P.s refused to give Banker Coyne a hearing to present his side of the story, the Senate asked him to appear. In three days of skillful testimony, Rhodes Scholar Coyne made short work of the Tories' charges that his tight-money monetary policies clashed with their own (TIME, July 14), even more effectively disposed of the government's charge that he arranged an overly large pension for himself. Cried Coyne, in an emotion-choked voice: "A vote in favor of this bill is a verdict of guilty. A verdict of not guilty will permit me to retire honorably and to hold up my head among my fellow citizens as one whom this body of honorable Senators declared to be a man of honor and integrity."

The Senators rejected the Commons bill and returned a verdict of not guilty. "This," crowed a Liberal Senator, "is the Senate's finest hour." To make their rebellion more binding, the Senators also threw out a controversial Tory tariff bill designed to boost duties on imports of goods which are also made in Canada.

Spoiling to Fight. In the sudden turn of events, and with the prospect of a general election that few Canadians have thought likely this year, the question was whether the Tories had gone looking for it or had it thrust upon them. The evidence was that both sides were spoiling for a fight. In joining battle with Coyne, Diefenbaker asserted that "the issue is whether this country is run by the governor or the government." The Tories would now try to make the Senate another villain, picturing it as trying to frustrate the national will. Liberal Leader Lester B. Pearson's strategists seemed equally willing to join issue, apparently convinced that in a summer of drought after a winter of massive unemployment, they could make the election turn on the issue of the government's ineffectual performance in coping with a troubled economy.

Diefenbaker gave no sign of when he would invoke his prerogative of calling an election. Ottawa betting, as Parliament adjourned for a belated summer recess, was that he would dissolve Parliament soon after it reconvenes early in September, setting the election for late fall. Smarting under the Liberals' provocation, many Tory voices were impatient for the fight to start. "The sooner the better," editorialized the Toronto Telegram. "The Senate has proved itself to be a Bourbon relic. Voters everywhere in Canada are asking, who rules in Ottawa?"

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