The Irrelevant Senate?
Is news of Liberal senators caving to the minority government Prime Minister Harper leads on the omnibus crime bill / election threat one more sign of the irrelevancy of the Canadian Senate?
Once, possibly, the “House of Sober Second Thought” may have played an important role in government; but with various Prime Ministers over the last few generations stacking the Upper House with party loyalists instead of people who actually are concerned with real legislative review I’ve got to wonder if it’s worth our time, or our money anymore.
Currently Conservatives in the Senate are stalling passage of Kelowana Accord legislation passed by the House for purely partisan Conservative reasons, and Liberal Senators have, until Prime Minister Harper issued his ultimatum, been doing the same with crime legislation also passed in the House – and also for partisan reasons.
– no sober second thought happening there is there?
Now we see the Senate being told by the Prime Minister not only what they will do, but within what time frames they will do it, and the Senate doing what they are told when they are told to do it — no sober second thought happening there either is there?
On the Prime Ministers part this is not only original but masterful; the Opposition is neither ready nor able to fight an election so why not exploit that fact to forward the party agenda?
The issue I have with this event is not that Prime Minister Harper has found a weakness and, by exploiting that weakness has circumnavigated (supposed) due process, but that the Senate has knowingly, and willingly, made itself an exploitable government body.
The Upper Chamber is supposed to be concerned with legislative review, not elections – that’s (supposedly) why they are appointed for life instead of elected for a set term. The fact that the Liberal majority in the Senate is more worried about their party and an election call than performing that function is simply one more indicator that the institution is becoming more and more irrelevant with each successive election and each partisan appointment.
– and an elected, and therfore partisan, Senate will not solve this problem – if you doubt that statement look south of the border.
Canadians should not fault Prime Minister Harper for gaming the system, they should join me in tipping their hats to him for providing one more example of how flawed our system has become.
It still isn’t certain that the Senate will follow Dion’s ‘advice’ to adhere to the deadline, and by no means certain that Harper would even be allowed to dissolve parliament if they didn’t. But you’re quite right – it reflects very poorly on the independence of the Senate.
Having said that, I am still convinced that a non-directly elected senate is an essential component of Canada’s Parliamentary system. Just try to imagine what kind of havoc a Harper majority could wreak if all those Liberal senators weren’t there. It needs to be fixed, not done away with.
A couple of suggestion for fixing it include a) examining the original system in the U.S. where Senators were elected by the individual State Legislatures, and b) redistributing the four region system to five-regions by splitting the Prairie Provinces from BC, which really has very little in common with AB, SK or MB.
Oh and BTW, keep in mind that Paul Martin (for all his flaws) was the first PM in I don’t know how many decades to appoint senators from parties other than his own. And he appointed a bunch of them.
(Remember kiddies – February is “Senate Bashing Month!”)
The legislation will pass
If your Senate reform suggestions do not remove the partisan factor from the Senate how do they result in real change Jennifer?
How the Senators get their seats is not relevant. If the House of Commons and the Senate are majority “one party” then legislation flows because the party wants it to and the legislative review process doesn’t happen – if the House of Commons and the Senate are each majority “opposing parties” legislation gets stalled based on party lines.
Where’s the change?
Re Paul Martin: did he appoint a sufficient number of senators from other parties to tip a Liberal balance of power in the Senate?
The Senate have, however, stood up to Stockwell Day’s bluster over the (clearly incompetent) revisions concerning security certificates that were passed by the Commons. Mind you, the Senate may cave there too, but nice to see even some resistance.
Stockwell Day doesn’t have the authority to disolve parliament – the Prime Minister does.
The Liberals don’t think they can fight an election on either crime or security issues, and for all their bluster I don’t think they can fight an election just now on the budget either (I fully expect to see no election and phrases like “non-partisan accomodation” spoken in that respect) – that aside, I wonder what the result would have been if the government had decided to deliver its ultimatum on the security certificate issue.
SL: “that aside, I wonder what the result would have been if the government had decided to deliver its ultimatum on the security certificate issue”
Probably more of the same, although perhaps this time the Liberals would just all call in sick rather than stage a walkout, or put their fingers in their ears when the Speaker calls the vote, or…
>Just try to imagine what kind of havoc a Harper majority could wreak if all those Liberal senators weren’t there. It needs to be fixed, not done away with.
Is that how you imagine Canada is to have “consent of the governed”? By having a senate that is stacked to restrain the wishes of 30-35% of the electorate a minority of the time, and to allow free reign to the wishes of a mostly different 30-35% of the electorate a majority of the time?
With the amount of power concentration in the PMO, there does need to be a second body. It should not be appointed to serve party (current Canadian model) or class (original British model) interests. It should be based on the original US model: a body appointed by members of the federation (whether they choose to hold elections, elevate members of their own legislatures, appoint, etc should be up to the members). The smaller members of the federation should have disproportionately large shares of power. And it should have the power to introduce legislation.
“It should be based on the original US model…”
Ahem…are you under the impression that our Senate was intended to mimic the “US model”?