Taking a stand: Bellemare talks modernization, and her ‘challenging’ road in the Senate
From Conservative Senator to unaligned independent to deputy government representative and beyond, Quebec’s Diane Bellemare has held a number of affiliations through her 14 years in the Red Chamber. But one thing has remained constant: staying true to her own conscience, even if it meant ruffling some feathers.
“I am proud to have changed groups, I’m probably the only one who changed so many times, but … I think I have followed my integrity, my conscience, so this is what I’m proud of,” Bellemare (Alma, Que.) told The Hill Times in an interview in her seventh-floor Chambers Building office on Oct. 9—her second-last sitting day ahead of her mandatory retirement on Oct. 13.
At times, doing so required “courage” to stand against colleagues, “but I did it,” said Bellemare, who is retiring as a member of the Progressive Senate Group.
With a background in economics—including as a longtime professor, and a past member of both the Economic Council of Canada and the National Statistics Council—she also pointed to her work on monetary policy as a member of the Banking Committee as a top accomplishment of her Senate career.
Bellemare was appointed to the Upper Chamber in 2012 on the recommendation of then-Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper—a nomination that she said came “out of the blue.” It was then-Conservative Senate leader Claude Carignan (Milles Isles, Que.) who first let Bellemare know she’d made the short list. “I was surprised, and I was not sure that I wanted to be a Senator at first. I’d never really thought about it, but he told me, ‘don’t take too much time,’” she recalled.
Drawn to the idea of helping design public policy, Bellemare had years earlier dipped her toe into the world of partisan politics, and found it wanting. She first ran provincially as an Action démocratique du Québec candidate in 2003, and in 2008, she was tapped to serve as special economic adviser to the party’s leader, which led to another run in a provincial byelection the same year.
“It didn’t work out for me very well, and I did not really enjoy partisan politics. It’s not me,” she said, describing herself as someone who prefers to “tackle issues from an intellectual point of view.”
But by the time Harper called a few days after Carignan, Bellemare had decided to accept.
Taking her seat as a member of the Conservative caucus, Bellemare described her early years in the Senate as challenging. “It was new, so it was difficult, and the Senate was so different than it is today.”
Bellemare said she “felt a bit alone” as an “independent thinker” trying to navigate her way through the big, “complex institution” that is the Senate. While she said people were “nice individually,” she described the experience as embarking on a “train that’s already rolling, so you have to be careful.”
Then a two-party Chamber, Bellemare said it was made “clear” she was expected to be “with the Conservatives.” Nonetheless, she didn’t hesitate to speak against bills she didn’t agree with, regardless of whether they came from within her own caucus, including—notably—Bill C-377, a Conservative private member’s bill that sought to force labour unions to publicly disclose financial information.
“I became louder about my opposition,” said Bellemare. “After that, it was difficult for me to pursue my affiliation with the caucus.”
Adding to Bellemare’s challenging start was the Senate expenses scandal that surfaced in late 2012. Though she “had no issues” of her own—having only newly arrived—she said the “overwhelming” media coverage and treatment of the Senate, the “accountant firms everywhere,” and the general “turmoil” was “traumatizing,” but also underlined for her how easily the Prime Minister’s Office could reach into the affairs of the Senate and “govern both Houses.”
The more she became acquainted with the Senate, the more “evident” it became to her “that the Senate of Canada could play its constitutional role much better if it was composed of many groups,” she said.
Jumping the Tory ship
Already beginning to promote the idea of a more independent Chamber herself, Bellemare said she was “impressed” when then-third party leader Justin Trudeau (Papineau, Que.) kicked Senators out of the Liberal caucus in 2014.
Still, Bellemare said it didn’t feel “legitimate” for her to quit the Conservative caucus while Harper was prime minister, and so she stayed put.
But then came the 2015 election, and after the Trudeau Liberals formed government, Bellemare said she saw a “true willingness to make the Senate more independent,” leading her to finally sever ties with the Conservative caucus in March 2016 to sit as an unaffiliated Senator.
Around the same time, now-PSG Senator Peter Harder (Ontario)—then-newly appointed as the first-ever government representative in the Senate—was on the hunt for a deputy.
Aware of Bellemare’s views—including her disinclination toward partisan politics—Harder approached her for the job. Knowing the tough road ahead, she said she took two weeks to decide before accepting.
“It was difficult because we were inexperienced, and that was an experiment,” she said.
“That was the true challenge: how do you pass government legislation in a Senate where there’s no government caucus?” The answer essentially came down to lots of phone calls, and foot work—work Bellemare attributed largely to then-government liaison Grant Mitchell. She also credited Conservative Senators for understanding that while they then formed the largest group in the Chamber, “they could not oppose just for the sake of opposition” and trump the will of the elected government.
Come 2019, Bellemare said she felt she’d accomplished what she wanted with the government representative team in getting the “experiment” of the new Senate going, and was eager to dig into work to modernize its rules. And so, after that year’s federal election, she left to join the Independent Senators Group.
But while her belief in the need for a more independent Senate served as common ground within the ISG, she said she clashed with the group on two main points. For one, she disagreed with the view that the Senate should be a Chamber of independent individuals, rather than a Chamber of groups independent from political parties. And, for another, she opposed the ISG’s—ultimately successful—push to suspend a long-standing Senate rule that enabled Senators to keep their committee roles through the end of a session, regardless of whether they change groups.
Bellemare left the ISG to join the Progressive Senate Group in 2021. Soon after, she became chair of the Senate Rules, Procedure, and the Rights of Parliament Committee.
‘It would be an error to try to go back’ to Senate’s old ways
Much of the Rules Committee’s work this Parliament has been spent undertaking reviews amid a push to cement modernization, and reflect the Chamber’s shift from a bipartisan body to a multi-group institution. Sparked by what’s been dubbed the Woo-Tannas motion, which identified Senate rules that failed to give “equity” to the new groups on matters like speaking times during debate, such changes have faced consistent opposition from Conservative Senators, who have pushed back on what they see as attempts to dilute their power as the official opposition.
Describing herself as a “person of consensus,” Bellemare said she made clear from the outset that the committee would leave the final say on any changes that couldn’t be agreed to unanimously to the Chamber. The Rules Committee has since produced six reports on the matter, with another on the way.
Last spring, a package of such changes were tabled by government representative Marc Gold (Stadacona, Que.), who used time allocation to force a vote. On May 8, a majority of Senators voted to pass Motion 165, despite Conservative opposition.
Reflecting on the lack of unanimous consent, Bellemare said, “If we had been truly rational, I think we could have had a common position, but it was impossible to do it for political reasons.”
With rising expectations that the Conservatives will form government after the next election, Bellemare is one of a number of Senators worried for the future of modernization efforts.
During the Harper years, Bellemare said Conservative Senators weighed in “behind the scenes” on the drafting of legislation, but once a bill reached the Chamber, the expectation was it would be voted through without amendment.
“I think there’s more debate with the new Senate,” she said, along with a different approach to “programming” the timeline by which bills are scrutinized by the Chamber that involves negotiations between group leaders, rather than time allocation pushed by the government.
“I think it would be an error to try to go back … and Canadians would see it as a willingness to control the Senate,” said Bellemare.
As she prepared to bid the Senate a final farewell, Bellemare said that while she won’t miss the late hours, she will miss the cut and thrust of the Chamber: the “adrenaline,” the politics, and the “great people here in the Senate.”
“It was hard to embark on that train, but … I’m gonna miss the train,” she said. “It’s a privilege to be a Senator; I enjoyed it.”
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