The trough revisited

One of the lesser-noted stories from yesterday's Senate appointments has to do with Harper's future plans for the upper chamber if he's allowed to stay in power. And all indications are that when Stephen Harper breaks a promise, it stays broken:

Conservative Senator Leader Majory LeBreton said in an interview Mr. Harper will fill another 11 vacancies by the end of 2009, bringing the Conservative total to 49. Eight Liberal seats will become vacant by retirements during the year.

Now, I'm not sure anybody else has yet noted the complete disconnect between Harper's current excuses and his apparent future intention.

After all, Harper's supposed reason for further breaking his promise about not appointing unelected Senators has been based on the possibility that the democratic coalition would be in a position to fill the seats instead. But if (perish the thought) Harper were to remain in power to the end of 2009, then it would seem obvious that the prospect of a coalition would be far in the rear-view mirror by that point.

As a result, any additional appointments could only be based on some combination of a desire to provide more citizen-funded goodies to his party's B-list bagmen, and an intention to try to establish Conservative control over the Senate even after he's voted out of office. Yet Harper's point person in the Senate is going out of her way to promise that he'll keep stacking the upper chamber at every available opportunity.

Ultimately, the plan to make regular trips back to the trough from here on in only suggests that Harper has really been looking for an excuse to dole out Senate seats all along even while promising never to do so. And with Harper so obviously focused on using the Senate as both a source of patronage and a possible roadblock against his political opponents, there's all the more reason for the coalition to be equally determined in preventing him from doing so.

(Edit: fixed wording.)