Senate reform: Two questions

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is making clear that he wants a new Senate and he will be appointing five new senators soon as part of his bid to get one. But let's be clear -- the new Senate he wants bears no resemblance to the old dream of Reform Party idealists.  To wit:

1. I keep hearing Conservatives say that they need a majority in the Senate so that they can carry through their legislative agenda from the House of Commons. Excuse me?  You need to appoint a majority in one place because you can't get a majority in the elected legislature? If Liberals did this during their minority rule (when Paul Martin appointed non-Liberals to the chamber), we would (appropriately) have seen a revolution in the West;  triple Es carved into every field past the Ontario border.

So, one question  no one's answered for me yet: Why should you have a majority in the Senate if you can't get one in the Commons?

2. The larger point, though,  is that the Senate isn't supposed to be a mirror of the House of Commons. It's supposed to be a check on the tyranny of blunt representation by population. (So that we weren't passing bills only that suit Quebec and Ontario, with their huge, Central Canadian  domination of the Commons.)

When Harper and others were calling for Senate reform in the 1980s and 1990s, they were asking for a chamber that would be different from the House of Commons; one that would  challenge legislation passed by the majority. It's supposed to be a check on the Commons, not a rubber stamp. Again, imagine the outrage from smaller provinces if the Liberals, while they were in office, argued that they had to fix the Senate so that it blindly adhered to their strength, based mainly in Toronto and Montreal. 

That leads to the next question: if Harper's new idea of Senate reform is just to have a chamber that does what the Commons orders it to do, then why have a Senate at all? Abolition is a much cheaper option, in the long term.

Back when I was in university, my Canadian government professor warned his class that he didn't want to read any more papers on Senate reform because the idea had been studied to death and there wasn't much original thought out there any more.  I bet he'd call this new idea original -- I don't think anyone ever proposed that we reform the Senate so that it did exactly what the Prime Minister wanted it to do, or that it gave him a majority, through appointment, which he couldn't obtain through democratic election.

Comments

[MyThought]

Bingo - please keep reminding people that the senate is suppose to be an independant second sober thought from parliament.

It's disturbing to see how many people, including Harper and his gang, don't understand this.

[I'll turn this country around...]

There will be no more complaints from Harper now that the majority senate is the conservative. When he promised never to appoint any Senators, he meant Liberal Senators.

Harper has no agenda. He never meant to reform the Senate, because he doesn't care enough to spend political capital on it. He scraps his own bills in the middle of passage and calls it "re-calibration." He brings in a fixed election date, then ignores it. He whines that legislation is dragging in the upper house, then shuts down the lower house.

Harper is great at talking about who we aren't, what we don't want, and what we don't care about. But he articulates no positive agenda on any major issue - or, when he does, he simply ignores his own words. I anticipate his budget will also be more about antagonizing his opponents than about helping the country. He and Flaherty have done it before. I look forward to the earliest chance to vote them out.

[Gabby in QC]

Your question "Why should you have a majority in the Senate if you can't get one in the Commons" is a valid one, and I don't have a more convincing answer than there isn't the kind of vote-splitting near impossibility to get a majority in the HoC. Lame, I know …
OTOH …
"I don't think anyone ever proposed that we reform the Senate so that it did exactly what the Prime Minister wanted it to do, or that it gave him a majority, through appointment, which he couldn't obtain through democratic election."
The PM didn't propose that either. What he did propose is the following:
• term limits (Bill S-4 introduced in May 2006, reintroduced as Bill C-19 in Nov 2007, reintroduced yet again as S-7 in May 2009. From Wiki)
• election of senators (Bill C-43 introduced in Dec 2006, and reintroduced as Bill C-20 in Nov 2007)
This last one, election of senators, would not necessarily guarantee he would attain a majority in the Senate. I may be wrong, but all the PM has asked is that provinces furnish him with a prospective senator's name, a candidate for the Senate chosen by that province's electorate, who could conceivably turn out to be a non-Conservative, no?
Then the question might be would this PM or any other be bound to appoint that elected candidate, or could (s)he refuse to do so? According to this report http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2006/12/13/harper-senators.html the elections would be non-binding. I haven’t looked into the constitutional ramifications, so I’m not sure.

[Edm Vic]

It is just to bad that most news paper people give one point of view (theres) and one that is not (like they say) that of most Canadians! I feel that there are 2 reasons why the news people do not like the PM he does what we Canadians expect him to do to represent ALL Canadians and not what the media want him to do and secondly; he makes the media work to his schedule and not theres! To bad so sad for you all!

[A. McCulloch]

Yes, the Senate is to provide 'sober, second thought' but it hasn't done that for years (if ever). Rubber stamp comes to mind. While Harper has been PM, can you think of any bill that was passed by the H of C but rejected by the Senate? I can't. So, what's the problem? Can you imagine the deadlock we would have if the Senate really had as much power as the H of C? Each would claim to represent Canadians and refuse to give in. Abolition is the only answer. Its cheaper too. Just don't fill any vacancies and eventually all the fossils will turn 75 and have to retire.

[BronwynMaye]

Thanks for this! Too often the role and responsibilities of the Senate is ignored in favour of the easy shot.

[MyThought]

We could save a lot of money, rhetoric and neverending elections if the senate were ALL independants, voting as they please, issue by issue.

[jenna]

""Why should you have a majority in the Senate if you can't get one in the Commons"

You mean like Paul Martin had from 2004 to 2006, and like the Liberal Opposition in the House had from 2006 to the present.

Your question really is quite disingenuous. Under our Parliamentary system, the PM has the right to appoint senators to fill vacancies, and if he gets enough vacancies to fill, then he manages to get a majority in the Senate. That's just the way it is.

PM Harper has indicated he wants to change the system, but so far the Senate has been singularly unwilling to co-operate, including throwing out some of the Senate reform legislation. Now that he has a plurality at least, we will get a better idea of where he wants to go on this.

[Northerner]

Answer to question 1: because he can. Being Steven Harper, he needs no more justification.
Answer to question 2: certainly it would make more sense to abolish the Senate than to use it as a rubber stamp while maintaining that it remains the "sober second thought". See above for reasons - Steve does not see any need for his actions to make sense.
My commiseration on having to put up with posters like Edm.Vic, although he is an excellent example of Conservative tactics - sounds like an echo of one of the guard-dogs like Baird.

[tharwat fawzi]

All Canadians thank you - and all other responsible Canadian news media -for doing your part in keeping the balance between the different institutions on which any democracy is based, and for standing against abuses of power.

[Brian]

I hate to answer a question with a question but in regards to your first question: Why then should the Liberals have a majority in the senate if they can't even get a minority in the Commons?

I don't know if an elected senate would be any better, maybe an appointed senate (with term limits) based on popular vote (that way all parties would be represented - NDPers and Greens would get a voice)?

[Lucky Mrabure]

Excellent question And I will bet you the Conservatives will be justifying this by saying the Liberals did it first and nobody should be complaining. One thing that will come out of this in the long run is that, the Liberals or NDP will be back in the majority again and I can't wait to see what this CONS. will be saying then, Hypocrites of the highest oeder.

[BronwynMaye]

@A. McCulloch

The Senate doesn't need to vote to reject a bill outright to ensure it doesn't become law.

[BronwynMaye]

@Gabby in QC

So many good points!

In response to:

"I may be wrong, but all the PM has asked is that provinces furnish him with a prospective senator's name, a candidate for the Senate chosen by that province's electorate, who could conceivably turn out to be a non-Conservative, no?"

My first thought: no Premier who wants to preserve her voice in Ottawa will ever allow Provincial legislation providing for elections for Senators-in-waiting. Just think: that Senator could claim the exact same mandate (winning a provincial election) as the Premier and therefore diminish the clout of the Premier at the federal table.

[Neale Adams]

I do not understand the point of a Senate (House of Lords, etc.) in a modern Parliamentary System. The point of the Lords (by extention, the Canadian Senate) was to rein in the Commons if it got out of control, i.e., legislate against the interest of the hereditary/wealthy elite. Do we still need that check? I don't think so.

[lorettaon]

I heard Senator Elaine McCoy on Power Play this pm and agreed wholeheartedly with her comments on the role of the Senate visa vi the H of C and her suggestion that Senators be appointed by a non partisan committee which is arms length from Gov`t. Makes infinite sense

[Gabby in QC]

BronwynMaye at 05:57 PM, quite honestly it had not occurred to me, as you and someone else elsewhere (?) suggested, that provincial premiers would view elected senators as challenging their authority.
Perhaps that is because
a) despite the fact I am a true-blue conservative, I still believe in people's ability to work together for the good of their own constituencies AND the good of Canada at large, which may surprise some "progressives"
and
b) despite the ambiguity or blurred lines of the constitution on federal vs. provincial jurisdictions (I'm no constitutional expert, just an interested citizen who educates herself on a need-to-know basis), senators should not pose a threat to the powers of provincial premiers.

However, if that is the case, i.e. that premiers fear losing some of their power, why not send to the Senate the provincial Intergovernmental Affairs ministers + some other elected MLA/MNA (contingent of rep by pop)? The second person might even be a a member of the party which received the second greatest number of popular votes in a provincial election.

As for PC Senator McCoy's suggestion, seconded by lorettaon at 11:08 PM, re: an "arms length from Govt non partisan committee," who would choose the members of that selection committee?

In the kind of suspicious atmosphere that reigns in Ottawa (all political parties, not mine alone, and including journalists) such a committee's appointments would be as suspect as the last batch. I mean, if a so-called supposedly non-partisan journalist like Don Martin can refer to some recent appointees as "Conservative toadies" or Jane Taber can open an interview with a prospective appointee to a similar selection committee with "Mr. Morgan, are you a bigot?" well, you can see why I'm skeptical on the idea of such a committee.