The
Senate
There are generally three views on
Senate reform “First, keep our current system. Second, elect our
Senators, and realign where Senators come from in the country (equal
representation). Third, simply abolish it.” I will add a forth
which falls between that previously proposed by the Conservatives and
that which at least one province has tried to initiate, that being
appointed by the PM from a short list provided by the provinces. I
will briefly cover each of these options most of which I have covered
extensively in these pages some time ago.
The current system has two major flaws,
the lifetime appointment (now resolved?) and the propensity of Prime
Ministers in power to make partisan appointments that detract from
the 'independence' and objectivity pf the second chamber. One of my
correspondents recently had this to say “Out here, we in Western
Canada, especially in my home province of Alberta, have been wanting
electoral reform for decades. What we'd especially like is to reform
the Senate, although the reforms Stephen Harper is proposing are so
poorly conceived that most Western academics have been giving them
the thumbs down.”
In 2006 the Conservative government introduced
legislation to limit the terms of Senators to
eight years. They also committed to introducing legislation that
would require non-binding elections for new Senators. The Prime
Minister would then use his/her discretionary powers to appoint the
winners of those elections to the Senate. The latter has obviously
not happened and Mr Harper has in fact increased the partisan nature
of appointees exponentially.The second option, an elected senate sounds good at first glance but not only would this require constitutional reform and a mechanism to hold such elections but would invariably lead to a similar mix of political affiliation to that of an elected House of Commons, it is the difference between these two bodies (if and when it exists) that enables the debate and 'sober second thought' that makes the Senate such an essential check upon power hungry and authoritative majority governments. As Senator McCoy said in a guest post here some time ago “an independent, appointed Senate could (ironically enough) be Canada's last best hope for democracy. For now, I'll leave you to mull that over … but consider this: if what we need is a group dedicated to public service who can speak truth to power, then we'd best find a way to insulate them from the pernicious influence of rapacious power seekers. A Senate appointed by some means other than the PM would fit the bill quite nicely.”
Another observer said:-
“If candidates for the Senate are aligned to our existing political parties, they will be dependent on those parties for financial and moral support to be nominated, elected and re-elected once their term is up. If they vote on a bill, contrary to their party’s vote in the House of Commons, they risk being ejected from that party and losing all support needed for re-election. We've seen how ruthless the last few PM's have been when a member votes his or her conscience. If you’re not careful, what you end up with is just doubling the number of sitting MP’s/Senators who are under strict control of one Party leader. They just sit in two buildings.”
If that indeed were the case, as it
seems to be in its present form, then we may as well abolish the
Senate. However that would leave any majority government, no matter
what affiliation, with totality unrestricted power to do whatever
they please without ANY second look at legislation. Given that even
those MPs presenting the bills, let alone all those who must vote
upon then, have recently revealed that they have little idea of the
details contained therein this is hardly a positive thing.
That brings me to the last possibility
where I will simply re-post my proposal from
two years ago:-
I offer the following observations in support of this proposal.
1) It avoids the expense and difficulty of requiring a public election each time a senator retires, and the electing of senators during a federal or provincial election which would be even more partisan..
2) It avoids the politicization of a public election campaign and would reflect a variety of political views as represented by the various legislatures involved.
3) It removes as far as possible the partisan choices of the PM of the day from the mix.
4) It ensures that the senators elected are in fact representative of the provinces which they represent and not beholden to the PM of the day or his party.
5) It does not require constitutional change but just an agreement from the Provinces, parliament and the PM (that’s the tough one) to proceed in this manner.
6) A rejection of a candidate as proposed shall be given the full light of day and debated in both the provincial and federal legislatures so that a PM cannot arbitrarily reject a candidate without at least some measure of accountability.
I note that in almost all of previous proposals some form of having all or some of the senators either elected or recommended at the provincial level was included, however non of the proposals was ever adopted perhaps because of other more contentious issues also proposed at the same time. The problem is of course, that any decisions to make the Senate less partisan and more effective must be made by highly partisan MPs, MPP,s and indeed by the senators themselves.
I will leave you with this from Liberal
Senator Joseph Day who appeared
on Power & Politics , and gave probably the best explanation for
the Senate and its role in recent memory:
The House of Commons is a house of politics, and they balance things on politics. They look at all the matters that are before them, what they want to get out, what they want to fight. We look at each piece of legislation, and we’re somewhere between the judiciary – the judges – and the political body, the House of Commons. We have a role to play that is quite different from the House of Commons, and we do our job and they do theirs. I don’t think anybody should think that we are just the other side of the coin of the House of Commons.
If the Senate is to fulfill this
'different role' and examine each piece of legislation with a
critical and non partisan eye then we must indeed find a way of
returning it to be a non political and independent body not beholden
to the PM or any particular political party.
For a comprehensive review of senate
reform proposals and constitutional issues surrounding them (and lots
of other information on parliament, elections etc etc) see The
Maple Leaf Web site
Support Democracy - Recommend this Post at Progressive Bloggers
2 comments:
Personally, I am not a fan of appointed senators. Any senator who is appointed has no democratic legitimacy. The appointment of senators imply that I, as a citizen of Canada, am too stupid to make a decision about my senatorial representative(s).
You did propose a system where the provincial legislatures could recommend an appointment to the Senate to the prime minister. If the PM should oppose an appointment, then Parliament could support that provincial recommendation or appoint someone else. I look at today's House of Commons. Since Harper has a Conservative majority, he is essentially the House of Commons. He can appoint someone else no matter whom a province or territory may recommend for appointment.
Canadians may eventually choose to abolish the Senate. However, there would be no assembly to represent the smaller provinces/regions. We could have an elected Senate. If both the Senate and House of Commons had their representatives elected by some form of proportional representation, I could foresee very few conflicts between the two houses even if their members were elected at different times.
We could have a German-style senate/Bundesrat where Senators are appointed roughly proportionally by the legislative assemblies after each provincial and territorial election. We could have more seats for bigger provinces and fewer for small provinces based on the square roots of the provincial/territorial populations. However, I would put a House of Commons override where a super majority of voting MPs representing a majority of the provinces/territories over those opposed plus a majority of the national communities Quebec/Rest of Canada could override a Senate veto. Note: a tie of MPs within a province would count neither in the affirmative nor negative.
Thanks for your thoughtful response Skinny. The main problem with almost any Senate reform including moving to elected individuals is of course it requires constitutional amendments which requires in turn federal and provincial consensus, something that is improbable in the near term. As you say any appointed senate no matter how filtered under the current rules depends upon the good will of the current PM. I don't see much hope for that solution either!
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