48 Replies to “But If Senators Are Elected…”

  2. This is ‘bottom-up’ transformation – and an excellent way to deal with a frozen Ottawa bureaucracy and mindset.
    But what about introducing limited terms for these self-defined Wise Men? Harper tried, but the Liberal dominated Senate refused; they like their entitlements.
    Of course, a better plan would be to ditch the Senate completely. I find it a strange governing mode where we define one legislative body, those who are elected, as susceptible to irrationality and the other legislative body who are appointed, as not susceptible to irrationality. I’d like to know the criteria by which we come to such a conclusion.

  3. ” But If Senators Are Elected…Where will Liberal-friendly journalists go to retire? ”
    Well there’s always the GG office and the various commission and crown corp figure head appointments but ex media brown nosers will have to scrap it out with Librano bag men for these plums once the senate has been ruined by democratization.

  5. I always wondered why Joe Clark never got a Senate seat – surely Chretien owes him a lot for keeping the Conservatives divided for so long, not to mention getting the Liberals back into power back in the Trudeau days.

  7. ET, Why keep the senate at all? Mainly because if the senate gets to be truly triple E, then it would be actually serving a purpose and also responsible to the people they represent (and elected them).
    Equal, Elected, and Effective

  8. I wonder what the Liberals would think about a law which sets the minimum age for a newly appointed senator at 67?
    Just a thought.

  9. Texas Canuck: Effective at what? What is the role of a triple-E Senate to be, and what would Canada gain by having such a Senate over having no Senate at all?
    This is no simple question. The Senate is an afterthought now because it tends not to get in the way of the House of Commons. There are historical anomalies to be sure (which tend to correlate with Liberal-packed Senates thumbing their nose at Conservative-led Houses), but for the most part it keeps its head down. If we ever give it real electoral legitimacy, it gets real power – but power to do what? The key point is fiscal policy. Should the Senate have power to block spending or taxation bills? If so, governments can fall based on its actions. If not, it wouldn’t do a thing to prevent spend-happy Houses.
    And what is “Equal”? Every province getting the same number of Senators? So that the tiny Atlantic provinces can vote as a block to keep equalization payments coming their way indefinitely, so long as they get a handful of other Senators to side with them? It is a dangerous assumption that a triple-E Senate would automatically align itself with western interests against the centre and east, which is the impression I get quite a lot from those who advocate it.
    And why do we really need another block of elected representatives? Is not 300+ MPs plus the combined totals of our provincial legislatures more than enough for a country of just over 30 million?
    I understand the west’s reason for wanting it – the period in the 90s when Ontario was electing majority Liberal governments unilaterally due to the split right. That situation is over, though, and the Liberals really have no hope of forming a new majority any time soon. So I’m not sure what the problem is that we need a reformed Senate to solve. Let’s define the problem first and see if there are other avenues to achieve it, such as reforming the House or perhaps the division of federal/provincial powers.

  10. Not knowing any more than I do about the Canadian parliamentary system, I find the story interesting in that the NDP, which is ostensibly for “democracy and all that rot,” wants to eliminate the Senate entirely.
    Gee, I suppose NDP’ers want to get rid of the Senate primarily because…they know damn well they’d fare poorly in electoral contests for that body.

  11. ET: “I find it a strange governing mode where we define one legislative body, those who are elected, as susceptible to irrationality… ”
    The purpose of the Senate was to prevent Parliament from being stampeded into bad legislation (eg: by powerful lobby groups with the aid of the MSM). Two recent situations come to mind: the gun control bill passed by the Chretien crowd and Global Warming (which we would have in spades if the 06 election had gone the other way).
    The fact that a Liberal appointed Senate does not fulfill it’s mandate is something the West takes offense to.
    Actions by our BC Liberal Government in their last mandate of late, illustrate government by lobby group in spades.
    In addition, a Government is rarely elected by a majority of the electorate today. An intelligent electorate could re-balance things if the elections were staggered such as in the US system.

  12. I like my father in law’s idea. Make the Senate the 10 premiers, and let them duke it out on regional issues, leaving commons to do day to day stuff; kinda of like the BNA Act envisioned, eh?

  13. Speaking of Senators – looks like Kennedy has a malignant brain tumor. (sorry – slightly off topic)

  14. gunney 99 – you are still assuming that the members of the Senate, whether appointed or elected, are somehow endowed with a superior wisdom to their fellow human beings in the House.
    I find this puzzling; how does such a superior wisdom emerge in one set of people and yet does not exist in another set?
    I say – get rid of it completely. I don’t see the point of it.

  16. Gunney, I agree with nearly all of your 1:56 post, except for this bit, “An intelligent electorate could…”
    HL Mencken said it best, “…the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”
    Or more nastily, “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”
    I think Mencken is right. The electorate is partly prevented from intelligent decisions because of the “hobgoblins” of which the media and various so-called public interest groups have so large an interest in creating and sustaining.
    So yes, ET, the Senate does serve a useful constitutional purpose. Dumping it would simply put us further into the hands of the bureaucracy and an imperial PMO/PCO irrespective of whose political partisans constitute its majority at any given time.

  17. A triple-E senate sounds good until you consider PEI and Ontario would be equal. So would New Brunswick and BC. So Would Nova Scotia and Quebec.
    A senate where all provinces are equal equates the 4 people living in PEI with the 11 or so million in Ontario. In fact, think about the fact that Atlantic Canada would have 50% of the newly empowered senate with 1/10th of the population or less.
    How someone from out west thinks that a good idea is beyond me. What? Don’t think you’ve paid enough equalization yet? Your taxes too low for your liking? Add Quebec to the mix and you get a clear majority with 6 of 10 provinces. Want to make it official? Add Manitoba. You’ll have to rename the place the People’s Marxist Paradise of Welfarastan but think of the possibilities!
    Our new motto: 60 to 0 faster than a Zimbabwean opposition member hitting the bottom of the pit. Or how about: Bringing the country from rich to poor faster than a Juan Perez!

  18. cgh – your conclusion in support of the Senate rests on an assumption that the members of the Senate are, in any order: intelligent, wise, non-partisan, owing allegiance to no lobby group or bureaucratic clique, and totally disinterested in power.
    Can you provide any proof that membership in the Senate requires or uses such attributes?
    Again, my opinion is – get rid of it.

  19. ET,
    Ditto. Gas the thing.
    One man, one vote, one time is an Afro-Marxist dictatorship, not a democracy.
    If you “elect” senators but can’t unelect them, you don’t have a democracy. For the senate to have more power you MUST have re-elections periodically.

  20. Canada seems to have been behind the door when they handed out journalists.
    Are there ANY good journalists in Canada? If so, why?
    What the heck can we do about the media? I have no subscriptions left to cancel.

  21. Yes, ET, I can give you one recent, perhaps debatable example, namely the Bill C-10. It was rushed through the Commons with no debate. There was a provision regarding arts funding by government in it. Only at the Senate stage is it being examined. Some might perhaps rightly argue that this examination in this specific case is more political tactics than principle. Nevertheless, on constitutional principles, which is what we are talking here, the Senate is doing what the Commons failed to do, namely a detailed examination of the implications of a tax bill.
    It is worth noting that it is precisely the examination of the British government’s climate change legislation by the hereditary peers in the House of Lords during the first half of this decade that helped make the Blair government so hot to trot on abolishing hereditary peers.
    A second and more general example is that the Senate has been through its committees raising for years the problem of chronic underfunding of the armed forces, notably through people like Colin Kenney.
    Remember, speaking in constitutional terms, the Senate is to provide “sober second thought”. That this principle has been debased in the past by various dubious appointments by various PMs in no way invalidates it. In conclusion, while the Senate may not always offer “intelligence, wisdom and non-partisanship”, abolishing it does away with that possibility entirely. I would prefer to engage in a battle to make it uphold those qualities rather than simply declare the battle lost, because then what you end up with is dictatorship by the PMO/PCO.

  22. I am with the abolish it crowd. It will never be reformed into what it was designed to do – sober second thought and regional representation.
    Sober second thought, like it or not, is already being performed by the Supreme Court. Of course they listen to neither the senate, parliament nor the people but that is another issue.
    If the intent is also to protect smaller provinces from tyranny of the majority then more powers should be transfered directly to the provinces. That may have prevented things like the NEP, gun registry and other disastrous federal programs.
    Transferring powers and taxes could rebalanced the relationship between provinces and feds. The feds would have to work with the provinces even if they have no MPs from there. Perhaps preventing what happened in the past, where the Libs used Alberta/West bashing to gain votes in central Canada.

  23. cgh, the moment the Senate becomes an elected body, “Sober second thought” goes out the window. We’ll be stuck with another set of politicians pandering to the lowest common denominator, special interest groups, etc, in order to get elected and reelected.
    That’s why I say we should define the problem we’re trying to solve first. And I don’t think C-10 is a good example. It’s a very minor thing being squawked about loudly by what amounts to a special interest group that has friends in the media.

  24. cgh: “Mencken is right. The electorate is partly prevented from intelligent decisions because of the “hobgoblins” “…
    My reference to intelligence in the electorate was with reservations. But I would rather, as you, have the option of another body that is not so immediately under the gun of PC or lobbyists, second guess the PMO, (because that’s all the HOC is).
    Will it work as intended? The New Senate will have to be responsible for that; but I would rather put my eggs in 2 baskets than all in one. Electing half the Senate each election would provide some insurance.

  26. ET
    I see two problems with abolishing the Senate:
    1- Without a Senate how can we control the HofC? The Prime Minister of a majority government is virtually a dictator, I don’t know if I’m comfortable not having a mechanism that can override a bill from the HofC.
    2- EEE Senate is the west’s only hope of equality in Canada; therefore I see it as Canada’s last hope.

  27. [quote]And I don’t think C-10 is a good example. It’s a very minor thing being squawked about loudly by what amounts to a special interest group that has friends in the media.[/quote]
    Ian in NS,
    C-10 is a little overkill IMHO.. What should be solved by a fraud charge against Porno Producers. That is the Borrowing of money from a Bank, using Gov’t funding commitment, and then use that money to make a porno (not allowed) movie. I don’t understand why the Gov’t thinks they have to pay the Bank!… F**K the Bank… let the Bank sue the producer.
    There is some Bull shit in whole System that needs fixing.

  28. ET et al re: the importance of a EEE senate.
    The most important advantage that the US system has over ours is that it has a EEE senate. Known as the great compromise, the creation of the 3E in philly in 1787 prevented the destruction of the union and has made it far stronger and virtually immune from disintegration – save the issue of slavery – than Canada’s confederation. Why?
    Because it put all states on an equal footing at the federal level thus state governors unlike premiers do not have to be advocates/militants for their electorate at the federal level.
    You want concrete examples of what wouldn’t have happened if the EEE was in place?
    The CWB
    The NEP
    Bombardier
    Hull
    Stationing of the majority of the coast guard’s eastern fleet in Quebec City
    CF-18 contract
    etc. etc.
    and upcoming policies – including the carbon tax probably would never see the light of day.

  29. California population est 2006 – 36,458,000 and
    2 senators
    Wyoming population est 2006 – 515,000 and
    2 senators
    The naysayers are right, an equal senate would never work in Canada.
    Canadians are so much more stupid, ill educated and just plain dumb, I guess.
    But why o why is the glass ALWAYS half empty in Canada?

  30. rockyt: “But why o why is the glass ALWAYS half empty in Canada?”
    Just read your posting again real slow.
    Not criticizing you rocky, you just had to be out looking for a job in the West during Trudeau’s reign to understand. And we re-elected him 4 times. Smart electorate! Yeah!

  32. Art Eggleton,Frank Mahovalich,etc,what could possibly be wrong with an appointed senate?

  33. Warwick – part of the ‘reform the senate’ package, advocated by the Prime Minister, is 8 year stints in the Red Room. If an outgoing Senator wanted to stay in Ottawa, he/she would have to run for re-election.
    The overhaul with a triple E senate would give Canadians a truly representative body working for the people of their region. I am not sure it should be a provincial thing; I think regional (based on geography) might be more effective.
    As Gord Turk said above; it is Canada’s last hope.
    We need ‘checks and balances’ in our government or it will degrade into Dictatorship (as it did under the Liberanos) and Canada will fragment into 5 to 10 countries.
    I am for firing the whole batch of lead heads that occupy seats right now, if they want to stay they can run for re-election in their home province.

  34. some of you just don’t get it do you. every state in the union has two senators and they tend to look at things in s slightly different manner than say the gang of Lieberals in Ontario. Some here are complaining that the six senators in Atlantic Canada will suddenly rule the country. It’s all checks and balances people. With a majority government there is nothing that prevents the leader of the party in power (whom most of the country did not vote for) from being a quassi dictator. The little fart from shiwinigate comes to mind. The biggest opponents to senate reform are those already in the cushy for life positions and those afraid of looking power and influence.

  35. playin-
    I see some merit in a Senate, an elected one with short limited terms…For example, Australia has done what Canada hasn’t – revamped the old Westminster system. It has an elected senate, with each region (province) having an EQUAL number of Senators (6 or 8..can’t remember), elected and limited term.
    I wouldn’t want a new Senate in Canada that retained its current representation-by-population. Even with this dictum, the current one is unfair. Quebec with its 7.5 million has 22 members. Ontario with its 12.5 million has, ahem, the same number.
    I’d say – copy the Australian one and have six per province. Limited term of 8 years. Elected.
    BUT – I still hesitate to recommend having a Senate even be retained. You refer to the threat of a dictatorship via a majority in the House, without a Senate. But Chretien, who most certainly was a dictator, was able to act as such, not merely by his majority in the house, but also by his patronage majority in the Senate, and by his effectively appointing all his cronies to key positions in various ministries.
    So, to prevent a dictatorship by the House, you must have fixed election dates. Get rid of your second Heavy Hand of Power (the Senate). And start to have more positions elected rather than appointed by the PMO (judges, heads of various organizations etc).

  36. “It is worth noting that it is precisely the examination of the British government’s climate change legislation by the hereditary peers in the House of Lords during the first half of this decade that helped make the Blair government so hot to trot on abolishing hereditary peers.”
    Tsk, tsk. Blair did nothing of the sort. He kicked most of the hereditary peers out of the Lords. He most certainly did not abolish hereditary peerages. The UK is still full of hundreds of them.

  37. The Old Republic didn’t have a second house and look what happened to the Imperial Senate. Lucky for us Dion is no Senator Palpatine, and Trudeau didn’t live for 800 years like Yoda.

  38. The Old Republic didn’t have a second house and look what happened to the Imperial Senate. Lucky for us Dion is no Senator Palpatine, and Trudeau didn’t live for 800 years like Yoda.

  39. It’s do or do not. No such thing there is as try.
    – Yoda
    If the US said it was impossible to have an elected senate, they could not have done it.
    It came about incrementally and it is basically an elected body that looks after the interests of each individual state in a national body.
    Equal votes per state regardless of population.
    Rep by pop in the House of Commons, equal representation of administrative district in the Senate.
    Both elected in regular elections. Thanks for coming.

  40. “The CWB
    The NEP
    Bombardier
    Hull
    Stationing of the majority of the coast guard’s eastern fleet in Quebec City
    CF-18 contract”
    Gord Tulk, I think you’re making the dangerous mistake I mentioned earlier: assuming that an EEE Senate would automatically take some sort of anti-central Canada stance on any/all of these issues. There are only 10 provinces in Canada. Only four are west of Ontario, and one of them is solidly a “have not” province with another only barely out of that status. So I ask: how do you know you’d get five other provinces to stand with Alberta to oppose the likes of those? I’ll say right now that NEP would’ve sailed through an EEE Senate with *maybe* three provinces off-side.
    This is the big weakness of a Canadian EEE Senate compared to America’s. We have a much smaller number of provinces than they do states. There will not be the diversity of viewpoints that their Senate (supposedly) has.
    There’s also an argument that electing Senators ruined the American Senate, because Senators became beholden to the whims of the electorate and not the legitimate interests of their states, thus Senators became every bit as good as dishing out pork as Representatives. Why else do dopes like Kennedy, Byrd, Thurmond, etc sit there for 40+ years? It’s something to consider.

  41. Perhaps our newly elected senators could not have any affiliation with any polital party.Nor could they be supported by any political party during their election campaigns.Are there enough non-partisans in the country to fill a senate?

  42. Come on guys/gals. #1. The Senate is COMPLETLY useless. It is a hold over from the British system of keeping the “Lords” in power. And does anybody with half a brain want to be related to EnglaIslam? #2. It sucks multi-millions of taxpayer dollars to do what? Sober second thought?Thing only thing sober about that lot is when they are passed out. #3. We are supposedly are a democracy,yet you want to keep UN-ELECTED people in power? Give your head a shake.
    The senate is nothing more then a neopitic place to put your friends,no matter what party,into a safe,nice retirement home,at OUR expense. And you want to keep it?

  43. Ian in NS – Why are you so afraid of change? How can a rational tax paying Canadian citizen sit on his/her hands and say ‘it can’t be done, won’t work….’ Just do it!! That unelected, unaccountable, money wasting, lazy mob of pandering hacks (Progressive Conservative/Liberano PETS of long gone WRONG PMs) are NOT representing Canadians.
    Why would Canadians have to be pitted against each other? Why would a Canadian have that mind set? The NEP was not a provincial thing, it was a Prime Minister vs the people of Alta thing. PET held all citizens in contempt but Alta had had the gaul not to vote for his preciousness. With that burr under his fluff he was further agitated by the fact that Alta was getting rich and he, the great turdo had no control of the $$!! I have relatives all over this nation, why would I wish any province ill? I want them all to be successful – that is the kind of senator I would elect. I do believe that most Canadians would do the same. We are looking for someone to bring our concerns to the table and seek reasonable accommodation for our concerns with the rest of the country. We do not want a Premier type person, this is not a Premier’s job….it is the job for a level headed individual who owes nothing to any Political party, Premier or Prime Minister. In short – a person lacking an agenda.
    We can do that if the ‘sky is falling’ nay sayers get out of the way.

  44. Ian and ET
    there were once only 13 states in the union with new york much larger than the smallest – only 26 senators BTW. The way it works in the US is that there is a lot of horse-trading – ie. virginia gives its vote in favour of something Montana wants in return for more defense contracts, etc.
    I would rather a EEE with 4 small provinces in Eastern CDA having 40% of the votes than a impotent current appointed senate that allows two provinces (QUE and ONT) to hold a majority of the seats in the commons – the only house with real power.
    The NEP would have been (was) opposed by BC AB SK NL and NS.
    For an excellent backgrounder on how the US Senate works I would highly recommend “Master of the Senate” the third book on LBJ written by the incomparable Robert Caro. (considered by many to be the finest political biography ever written BTW)
    As for the structure, eight yr terms with fixed dates that are two years separated from the HOC fixed 4 yr dates (the US House are 2 yr terms and the senate are 6yr) Only one quarter of the seats would be up for election every two years. Granted, a minority govt would throw the 2 yr spacing out of whack but alas, I have no easy fix to that. 16 yr term limits seem like a reasonable thing as well.
    I would also strongly favour term limits on PMs – 8 yrs seems logical.
    ET, under the above model the likes of Jean Chretien would be unable to hold much sway over who gets elected to the senate. and the one thing that has not been mentioned thusfar is that these senators would have very independent voices – so we could have liebermans and kennedys and Nunns and McCains etc. – a rainbow of opinion to offset the tragically partisan monoliths of opinion in the HOC.
    As the caro book noted above details the intent and role of the senate in the US has been to be the house of sober second thought – it is what prevents things like carbon taxes and the ruinous league of nations treaty that Wilson signed from being passed and kept FDR from stacking the Supreme court. It does indeed have a heavy hand – a heavy stabilizing – mostly conservative-thinking – hand.

  45. The more power is diffused with compeatinhg bodies, the better I like it.

  46. “these senators would have very independent voices”
    I’ll believe that when I see it, and not one minute before. I think we’d end up with just another bunch of rabid partisans, much like the Commons has degenerated into. And we’ve already got enough of those at the federal level, thank you very much.
    Also, Gord, you have to consider that the American Senate & Congress are able to have a more independent voice from the executive because the executive and legislative branches are two completely separate parts. Our government just isn’t structured that way so I’m not sure we can really draw from it. The Australian model is a better one to look to, but I honestly don’t know much about how it affects their system shy of the 1975 constitutional crisis it provoked.

  47. Ian the key difference (and similarity with the US) is that the senators would be elected in the off-years – their fate would not be tied to the election of the PM.
    We had a senate-related crisis during the Meech debacle – it was the primary reason why Wells was opposed.
    And the country has been in a cold-war type of conflict for decades now because the smaller provinces are not adequately represented at the federal level – I suspect that as a NSan that you could list several issues where your province got jobbed by ON and Que.

  48. Hey Gunney99, ‘We’ did not re-elect Trudeau 4 times.
    That was the sordid, despicable East voters that kept putting that fraudulent wacko back into office.
    Us Western voters were much too smart to vote for the Crooked Liberal Party du Canada.
    BTW, I did work in Calgary oil exploration patch for 10 yrs.
    Which is why I was part of (and still support) ‘The West Wants Out’ gang.
    Actually my comments was meant to be sarcastic, heh.
    I’ll be more careful next time. thanx.

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