Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall are expected to appear together Friday to call for the abolition of the Senate, according to a source familiar with their plans.
Harper is scheduled to hold a press conference at the Saskatchewan Legislative Building in the afternoon, where he will be joined by Wall.
Neither the Prime Minister’s Office nor the office of the Saskatchewan Premier could be reached Thursday evening to confirm the announcement.
Hmmmm…
Didn’t we just have the Supremes rule on Senate reform and turn the idea into a dead letter, short of full constitutional amendment?
Effectively, the ruling put ‘paid’ to the idea of reform without the 7 provinces 50 % of the population amendment procedure.
Mark me down under doubtful for Senate reform, I don’t see the groundswell of people lighting torchlights and brandishing pitchforks, for that type of undertaking.
The paltry sums the Senate wastes, while annoying, pales in comparison; to the waste endured under the former LIEberals.
Most folks can still see the forest before the trees, on this issue; media brow beating and drum beat moralizing aside.
Cheers
Hans Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group ‘True North’
And shortly thereafter, Justin will flip-flop on the issue and suddenly declare his long time support of the Senate. Mulcair will spit nails wondering what’s in it for “Working Families” (TM).
Canadian politics is so predictable.
Wasn’t Harper, along with Tom Flanagan, coauthor of the Firewall Manifesto calling for a Triple ‘E” Senate? If the thread topic is true, then Harper is a quitter. Maybe he got tired of herding cats, but I think Canada’s traditional institutions, especially if they were created to provide a firebreak for bad legislation, should remain intact.
This seems reactionary to me, hasty and ill thought out.
Senate abolition is an old NDP stratagem to essentially smooth the way for dictatorship.
Terrible idea. In the long run no EEE senate opens the door for the abuse of one region by other regions. A very short sighted response to an impasse.
What Harper is saying is that the senate cannot be properly reformed to fit as a second chamber of thought and a check on government – equal, elected, empowered – either the provinces resisted reform or they were put up to it by the `red media, or he is simply bailing on his election promise (as leader) to reform government. In any event Harper put little effort into the reform file – a leadership election promise broken. He is concentrating power more in the PMO than ever and there is still no action on disempowering whipped votes – between inaction on the RCMP break ins, his half measures in repealing the Nazi gun laws, now his break with reform , at this point Harper has lost all my trust.
We need a much stronger right of center leader.
In order to abolish the senate Harper would have to open the Constitution to change and invite the First Ministers to form an Accord similar to what Brian Mulroney did.
Doing so at the end of this session of Parliament with a general election in the offing is very bad timing.
What if the Accord drags on, abetted by Liberal and NDP Premiers who stonewall the discussions, and the Accord remains open and unfinished with a CPC election loss and Harper gets a minority where after the Accord is struck he must then seek to pass it with a minority in parliament or worse loses the government to another party altogether leaving either Mulcair or Trudeau as PM driving the agenda to exploit the open Constitutional talks with all sorts of radical changes to Canadian society?
Very poorly advised to do such a thing at such a time as the end of his term.
Here’s a prediction.
Harper announces that he wants a national referendum to settle the question….ie make it an election issue.
I don’t think he will come right out and demand it be put on the ballot, I think he will leave that move for someone else. Right now the liberals are desperate to differentiate themselves from the NDP and Leisuresuit Larry may be the one making the demand so he could be first out of the gate.
But this is idle speculation.
My interest has been picqued, I await the announcement to see what is to come.
Article quote attributing to PMSH
“The question should be put honourably to Canadians — we should afford them the chance to have their say. Otherwise, the system rolls on and the general cynicism will spread to other things, which is not a good thing for our democracy,”
So if this is to be taken as fact the PM wants the plebiscite first so that the politicians, lobby groups, and constitutional lawyers understand what the public wants and any contrary side deals become a third rail.
“Harper announces that he wants a national referendum to settle the question….ie make it an election issue.”
All it would take to scuttle that would be a single province which voted to keep the senate and the Premier of that province would be bound to follow the wishes of his/her constituents and not sign off.
Remember, it takes unanimous signatures from all First Ministers to change the Constitution.
Quebec alone would be guaranteed to hold out for a King’s ransom before signing whether it’s people voted oui or non.
Let’s leave the Senate alone or put it to a referendum. The NDP are in a box and nominal leader of the Liberals has already disowned all Liberal appointed Senators…let them squawk on. IMO Harper will stick with his original idea of having the provinces elect the Senators to be then appointed. If there is no will to do that among the provinces then they need to STFU and leave it alone.
EEE is the answer. But EEE is all or nothing. Harper’s strategy of incrementalism may have served him well in administering government, but it is the wrong approach here. Harper tried one E (electing) in an incremental fashion. He tried to honour Alberta’s Senate elections without getting a constitutional mandate that Senators from all provinces be elected. He also got some Senators to agree to resign after a certain number of years – forcing what he hopes will be an election in the future, but with no assurance that a future Prime Minister will honour any election or that a province will even carry one out.
A better strategy would have been to follow practices that would have made the Western loathing of the Senate institution equal across the country. How to do that? Very simple. 1) Appoint Atlantic and Quebec Senators and make no secret of the fact that Atlantic and Quebec Senators are indirectly being chosen by Ontario and Western voters. 2) Fill all vacancies with Conservative Senators. If the event the CPC loses the government this fall, the Senate chamber exists as a chamber of “sober second thought”. Or so we were told by the left media when the Liberal Senators dominated the Senate and they would stop Conservative bills. In the event a Liberal/NDP coalition forms government in the fall, a Conservative Senate chamber of “sober second thought” could stop some of the more radical bills. We would soon found out how much the left media actually believes the Senate to be a chamber of “sober second thought”.
If the event -> In the event
It’s the best opportunity I’ve seen. The Senate is widely reviled and the Quebec Premier is more reasonable. I can’t see the Premiers giving up their great patronage powers though.
“In the long run no EEE senate opens the door for the abuse of one region by other regions.”
An EEE Senate wouldn’t stop that. Think about it. There are only 10 provinces. Four of them are Atlantic welfare deadbeats. Ontario & Manitoba are five & six, both comfortably taking part in sucking down equalization dollars. Quebec is 7. No explanation needed.
Any additional sort of wealth-transfer scheme cooked up by the House has as many as 7 blocks of Senators all lined up ready to support it right out of the gate. Toss in a left-coast loony or two from BC and it’s no contest. And oh yeah – Alberta herself is loony left until at least 2019. There’s no way you can draw a Senate electoral map today that concludes with a Senate dedicated to resisting the growth of the federal government. NONE.
I’m fine with abolishing the damn thing, I really am. I don’t think we need MORE bloviating gasbag elected federal politicians in this country huffing & puffing about how they deliver the gravy to their constituencies. I also think the Senate as it is today is somewhat benign. Give it electoral/reformed legitimacy to flex its constitutional muscles and we could end up with some serious logjam in Ottawa on a regular basis. “Great!” you say when Pony is in power; not so great when the next Conservative PM is.
Well since it can’t be done without a full constitutional rework I think this is rather clever politics. The media’s dry humping of the Duffy story has all been for naught.
The only thing we can say for sure at this point is whatever Harper decides, it will have been strategized for the benefit of the CPC, not Canadian citizens. The opposing party leaders will then strategize a reaction to best benefit their parties, not Canadian citizens.
To believe anything else is to be an absolute friggin’ fool.
6 moves ahead as usual.
I have to say I love watching the man work. Braveau Harper. Braveau.
‘I don’t think we need MORE bloviating gasbag elected federal politicians in this country huffing & puffing about how they deliver the gravy to their constituencies’
That is exactly correct and one of the reasons I’m not fond of the American 3-headed leviathon that ensures ‘big government’.
Nothing will ever change. It requires unanimous support of the provinces. PEI with 4/10 of 1% of the population has 4% of senate seats. To get Quebec support, the constitution would have to be amended to allow for summary execution of English speakers in Quebec. The economic cesspool east of the Ottawa River plus the Arctic cesspool control the Senate. Why would they give that up?
If this issue gets to a referendum question during a general election, it will set a precedent that cannot be put back in a bottle. People will demand other questions be put to referendum, a Reform/Alliance Party policy realized.
Beefing up the Senate was always a bad idea because that would legitimize it. Abolishing the Senate is exactly the right thing to do and now is the right time to do it.
leisure suit Larry cant upset Quebec who see their 25% holding as an asset to block all legislation .
This is a classic Harper political tactic: take the opposition’s wedge issue off the table.
Harper did this with the AGW debate when he “flip-flopped”. Well, he started singing off the right sheet; but, never did follow through. In fact, he pulled-out of Kyoto.
So, this was the NDP high ground. They were going to paint Harper as a “Senate guy”, and tie him to the corruption. Instead, Harper shows leadership, and vows to get rid of the Senate(which he can’t/won’t); taking the MAIN wedge issue for the Dippers off the table.
In hindsight, we now know the answer to why Harper didn’t pull a snap election last summer when the ISIS debacle started. Me thinks he knows what he is doing. Very astute.
Harper 2015!
Cheers
OZ
I agree with the last bit.
That said, you and I know the PM doesn’t have the power to abolish the Senate. It won’t happen!
Furthermore, Harper tried for over a decade to reform the Senate. The Courts finally put the nail in the coffin for that. Personally, I blame the Opposition, because they resisted voluntary reform of the Senate every step of the way.
The EEE Senate was for a long time my most important issue, as an aggrieved Albertan. Today, I’m with Harper on this one; let’s see the Opposition’s next move.
One last bit on the politics of this move.
Quebec is the stronghold for the NDP. Quebec will also be the main resistance against any push to abolish the Senate.
As I said in comments earlier this month, the NDP will start to shed votes in Quebec to the BQ; and now possibly the LPC over this issue.
This puts the NDP in a very difficult position.
PM Harper is now ahead in the incessant polls, the media are crediting the the family allowance handouts….sorry, it’s not. IMO it’s the election of the NDP in Alberta and the mess we have in Ontario with a scandal ridden, corrupt Liberal regime, both with majorities. This, as well as the perpetual dole takers through Equalization, Quebec and the Atlantic provinces is enough to make smart people wake up to the reality of job losses and recession or worse.
The first politician to tell it like it is without sugar coating will be the winner, Harper is capable of doing just that, he represents security on all fronts, something not evident in Mulcair or Trudeau.
“I don’t think we need MORE bloviating gasbag elected federal politicians in this country huffing & puffing about how they deliver the gravy to their constituencies.”
Instead of reducing the HoC from 308 to 48, it is being increased by another 30 MPs (Mostly Parasites).
As things are unfolding it’s becoming more apparent neither Mulcair or Trudeau are capable players in the game of political chess.
Perhaps more importantly, neither of these reprobates is capable of leading a two person dog catching department, never mind a large, diverse country.
Harper offered up the option of electing candidates for senate seats. As I recall, only Alberta took him up on it; the remaining provinces gave it a big ‘nyet’.
The current senate formula offers (among other inequities) NS 10, NB 10 and PEI 4 senators each. That works out to an average of 1 senator for every 76,000 residents. If BC, AB and SK – you know, the provinces that pay the bills – had the same ”rep by pop”, they’d have a total of 113 seats in the Red Chamber.
Interestingly, QC has a Senator per population ratio of 1:337,000 or 1/2 that of BC. All things being equal and using BC’s allotment of 6 senators as a base for recalculation, that’d reduce QC’s count from 24 to 3!
Notwithstanding the Senate’s dubious record, is it any wonder there is substantial push-back from the established have-nots?
maybe in the end the puffster will go down as a hero , saving us a billion dollars by causing the whole dissolution of the senate.
maybe by volume PEI has 6 senators. it appears he has never strayed far from the trough either as a journalist or a senator.
Are we Old News’s therapy or her TOEFL prep class?
I doubt he would do it straight away, but after getting another mandate.
It’s a no-go: Conservatives deny reports of Harper calling for abolition of Senate
Moratorium on new appointees, apparently.
Its not going to happen. The NP got it wrong.
Alberta has managed to elect candidates to the senate.
Why can’t the others?
The NDP wants it gone.
Justin wants a gov’t appointed board to appoint the senators.
I think an effective senate is necessary.
Alberta has got it right.
If I read this right Harper is throwing this back to the provinces to come to a concensus first before he’ll even meet with them.
The benefit is that if the provinces all have one agreement no side deals period.
So he won’t appoint any senators. But if a province made a selection would he allow that?
And what premier would care to get their hands dirty?
How nay SDA readers are aware that the Canadian Senate killed the federal climate change bill ?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/11/17/canadian-senate-kills-climate-change-bill/
Precisely the case in both your posts, Indiana. Just like PET three decades ago, Harper has the media chasing their tails. The spluttering fury of assorted left wing gasbags on CBC is a wonder to behold. Harper knows the constitution as well as anyone. Of course abolition even by stealth isn’t possible. However, as attendance slowly drops over the years to come, the Senate will become more and more unworkable on simple quorum bases.
The problem is that there has to be a functional Senate to pass legislation.
What may in fact happen is that every PM may in turn appoint only enough yes-men (and/or yes-women) senators to assure quorum so that they can rubber-stamp everything. Every party will tacitly agree that emasculating the Senate is preferable to a Constitutional crisis.
The Senate will be functionally obsolete (if not theoretically so), more power will devolve away from the legislature to the PMO, and the Constitution and Supreme Court will have been effectively circumvented. A terrible outcome, but at least one that won’t break the country up in the short term.
3-7. (1) A quorum of 15 Senators, including the Speaker, is required for the Senate to sit and conduct business.
I think we’re OK for a few more years.
http://www.parl.gc.ca/About/Senate/Rules/senrules_00-e.htm
However, I do believe that here is a rule that vacancies must be filled within a certain time limit.
When will the outcry erupt that PM Harper is not appointing enough senators ???
Good call cancelling any climate change BULLSHIT…
Maybe the Senate does have some value?
Conservatives will still have that hammer still after the election regardless of results…
It wil tak awhile for either of the othe parties to wrest control.
Mr. Harper my respect for your governance continues to grow.