At Mace Value

There shall be One Parliament for Canada, consisting of the Queen, an Upper House styled the Senate, and the House of Commons. — Constitution Act, 1867, section 17

When the Forty-Fifth Parliament is very soon inaugurated, the ceremony will be held in the Senate of Canada, now temporarily ensconced in a building that was once a bustling railway station and then, for a time, a drab conference centre, located across the street from the Château Laurier in Ottawa. King Charles III will read the Speech from the Throne before a select audience of Supreme Court justices, senators, members of Parliament, and senior officials.

As many around the country hang on every word of what will be, arguably, as close to a wartime speech as we have had in a century, some members of the audience will be thinking ahead to what will happen to legislation when it arrives in the same Red Chamber in the coming...