All right; here we go.
The Prime Minister not appointing someone after the process has already started, first of all, is a political question. But the fact is that we already saw that practice engaged in after the first elected senator was appointed. Jean Chrétien proceeded to appoint senators and to ignore the Senate elections that had taken place in Alberta.
I note similarly that following the 1898 plebiscite on prohibition, Sir Wilfrid Laurier chose to not follow the results, although the referendum passed, and he was successfully able to do so. So this could occur; that question is actually answered.
In your second question you asked what the Supreme Court would say. Well, what they wouldn't do is refer back, as you did, to the 1981 reference case in which they said there's a conventional obligation, because there wasn't an amending formula at that time, and there now is an amending formula. So the reference to a conventional obligation that was cited at that time with regard to an amendment to the Constitution, about whether the right formula was chosen, would not actually apply in this case. That's clearly the case; 1981 is before a bright line that occurred legally with the passage of the Constitution and its amending formula.
Number three is what kind of chaos ensues if the court strikes this down. Presumably it would be the same kind of chaos that occurred pursuant to the 1985 Manitoba reference case in which all of their laws were struck down. The courts then sat down and said “You have to re-enact the laws”. They went out of their way to ensure that chaos would not ensue.
I suggest that striking down the law—which I think is extraordinarily unlikely, but if it were to occur—would mean that a new process had to be found, not that laws passed by the Senate with other incumbents elected or appointed under that law are now invalid.
These seem to be me to be reasonably obvious responses.
I finally notice that you didn't cite the 1919 judicial committee of the Privy Council decision, in which a referendum that had been passed by the Manitoba legislature was struck down because it impinged too much on the prerogative of the crown, which is the real issue here. The judicial committee of the Privy Council in that decision pointed out that it is possible, if one is respectful in the formal sense of the prerogatives of the crown, to engage in alternative and more democratic methods of law-making. That seems to be a very relevant precedent.
Thank you.