Senate Reform: Thinking Outside the Box

"Duffy-Gate". A useful crisis

Well, Stephen Harper has his "useful crisis" in his alleged ongoing quest for Senate reform. Ironically, it comes as a result of misdeeds perpetrated by his own appointees. Kind of makes you wonder at the "coincidence" of the whole affair. 

So now his Harperness, buoyed by this crisis and aided by his Strausiann lick-spittle, Pierre (Skippy) Poilievre, is hell-bent on unilaterally imposing change on the Upper House. 

Of course, Harper wants to do things unilaterally because he lacks the ability to negotiate as illustrated by all those "successful" free trade deals and pipe lines he's negotiated. Changing the Senate in any way, shape or form is supposed to be a constitutional affair requiring participation of the provinces. But of course, Stephen has never once sat down at a table with all the Premiers. 

Harper is not a consensus builder. He seems to lack that ability. Unless the deck is heavily stacked in his favour and his opponents are sufficiently restricted in their ability to challenge his will, he doesn't enter into the game. Hence his desire to change the Red Chamber his way. 

Of course, the PM doesn't want the Senate abolished out right as the

NDP advocate. Once he sufficiently had it stacked in his favour during his minority governments, it was extremely useful to him as illustrated by the Upper House outright killing an NDP environment bill. So even if he didn't have a majority in the House of Commons, he could still control the game by keeping the Red Chamber under his thumb.

But is Stephen really pushing for any kind of real substantive change? He wants fixed terms and elected Senators. All fixed terms does is make it easier for successive governments to change the balance of power in the Senate. On the surface of it, this may sound like a good thing. But if Steve didn't think it would in some way benefit him, he wouldn't be going there. 

And elected Senators. While this too may sound like a noble idea, it has the potential to produce legislative gridlock as one elected body vies with another for supremacy and for the bragging rights as to who is the true "voice" of the people. For more thoughts on the notion of an elected Senate, click here. 

Unlike the NDP, I am all for retaining the Senate and reforming it. You see, I believe that a right and true house of "sober second thought" is a good thing - a body that could put the brakes on when Parliament becomes nothing more than a rampant house of partisan ideology, devoid of any real political debate and rational decision making - much as it is now. This was no where better demonstrated then the recent decision by the Senate to kick Harper's Union Transparency bill (and make no mistake about it. It might have been presented as a private member's bill, but this was Harper's baby) back to the House of Commons. You see, it's the Senate's job, when they get ill conceived legislation such as the Union bill, to either send it on to committee for further study and/or to kick it back to Parliament to rethink. It's a matter of providing checks and balances which is not such a bad thing when we have such a closed minded, power-tripping majority Government as we have today. 

But do fixed terms and elections go far enough to change the real problem with the Senate? Not by half. Like most of Harper's so-called democratic reforms, these are nothing more than cosmetic changes -  window dressing that might look good and give him something to hang his hat on - a quasi-legacy that his current seven year tenure is completely devoid of. But these reforms do nothing to change the functionality of the Red Chamber. It doesn't change how they operate. And if future senators are elected Stephen's reforms do nothing but provide the promise that the he will honour the elected Senatorial Candidates in each region. There is nothing to hold him to that promise and we all know how credible Steve's word is. 

A Pack of Partisan Monkeys

But regardless of how these Senator's are chosen, if they perform no better than a pack of partisan monkeys when they get there, taking their cues from and owing allegiance to their respective political party's, then nothing is going to change. The Senate will remain a useless appendage. 

So this is where the whole "thinking outside the box" thing comes in. If we're going to talk real Senate reform and we want to talk about it being a true House of "Sober Second Thought", then lets think big. Lets change the paradigm. 

First of all, let's talk about Senators being members of the same political parties that infest the lower house (more on my opinion of political parties here). If we expect our Senators to be completely free of the political rhetoric of the Lower House, then they need to be free of those parties. So in my opinion, Senators, regardless of their previous incarnations, should be made to relinquish any and all party affiliations when being sworn in. They should be first and foremost, servants of the citizens of Canada, not extensions of the House of Commons, party ideology or the PMO. 

So then like the Auditor General is and the PBO should be the Red Chamber should be a completely arm's length non-partisan legislative body that is 100% independent of the Lower House. It should be, as it was with the recent Union bill, the sober body that looks at legislation and either recommends changes, passes it back to the House of Commons or rubber stamps the bill. Therefore the Prime Minister should have nothing whatsoever to do with the appointment of the Senator's, elected or otherwise. 

I would incidentally, completely remove the power of veto from the Senate unless a proposed piece of legislation is found to be unconstitutional. Even then, I would recommend that rather than being able to veto said bill, the Senate would be compelled to return it to the Lower House for more thorough scrutiny. But with the Senate being an independent "thoughtful" body, legislation from the Lower House would do well to be more thoughtful as well - legislation they submit should be better discussed and debated rather than having "closure" imposed on it thus ensuring half-assed bills aren't kicked upstairs and that gargantuan omnibus legislation isn't crammed into law without proper scrutiny. 

So then lets look at where Senators would in fact come from if not from the Prime Minister himself. Why not from the Governor General? Our Head of State, who would have the power to enable an independent selections committee who would in turn make recommendations back to the GG rather than to the PM.  In this way, appointees to the Upper House would have absolutely nothing to do with the Prime Minister nor Parliament and aren't faced with the prospect of owing the government of the day for their position. 

Senator "Mom". Hey! Why Not?

And just who would these future Senator's be? Well I would recommend Canadians from all walks of life. Professor's, political scientists, Doctors, lawyers, teachers, farmers, mothers, former aboriginal leaders, volunteers: all people who have performed service to their communities, their Provinces and to the country itself. Almost anyone but former politicians. 

I'm sure there are plenty of arguments for and against my ideas for Senate reform as I've presented them. But they are not intended to be the last word on reforming the Upper House. But what I hope my ideas will do is to stimulate thought and to provoke discussion. To get Canadians thinking about what the real problems are with the Senate and why they exist. My solutions may not be the best ones, but by stepping outside the box in search of remedies, by shifting the paradigm, we can maybe start thinking about and imagining what our democracy can be. Maybe we can start a revolution of electoral and democratic reform that will ensure that we will never again be plagued with destructive autocratic governance and that together, we can eventually make Canada's democracy the envy of the world. Is that too much to hope for?

Doesn't Canada Deserve Better than This?

The Illusion of a Democratic Senate

A central plank in Stephen Harper's election platform in previous federal run-offs, has involved Senate Reform. This is a notion that he has played lip-service to with the introduction of Senate reform legislation that would see each province nominate elected Senatorial candidates to the Prime Minister every time a seat representing that region becomes vacant in the Upper House. The Power of course, would still remain with the Prime Minister. He could choose to appoint a nominated Senator... or not. And his appointment of no less than 48 Conservative Cronies, mostly like minded, defeated election candidates to the Red Chamber is an indication that Harper has no interest in relinquishing his strangle-hold on the Senate and that his legislation, like his current government, offers only the illusion of democracy.  Thus far, the only province that has offered elected Senatorial candidates is Harper's home province of Alberta. But with the appointments of elected Senatorial Candidates such as Bert Brown and Stanley Waters, both of whom are ex-Reformists,it was pretty easy for Harper, also an ex-Reformist, to rubber stamp their appointments while still  pretending the process was democratic.   

The problem is, the Supreme Court of Canada declared in 1980 that Parliament does not have the constitutional right to, in any way, alter the "characteristics of the Senate" with out the Provinces. This of course, would open up a new round of constitutional wranglings. Since Harper is not known to be a consensus builder and is not prone to consulting the Provinces on much of anything, this is not likely to happen. Thus far, the Province of Quebec is the only region to issue a constitutional challenge to the proposed legislation. Not that it would in anyway, put the brakes on Harper's agenda as he has little regard for the Supreme Court of Canada. 

Now the notion of a "Triple E" Senate (an acronym for Equal, Elected and Effective) has been bandied about for years. A great notion on the surface of it. I mean, who wouldn't want a democratically elected legislative body representing them..... kind of like what our House of Commons is already supposed to be. So then why on earth would we need TWO such legislative bodies? What would their relationship be? Which one would hold trump over the other? Which one is the TRUE voice of the people? We have to look no farther than our immediate neighbors to the south to see that  this kind of system enables nothing but stagnation and ineffective government. As is happening here in Canada at break-neck speed, we  are witnessing real power in the States shifting from the duly elected officials to the cadre of non-elected strategists, (such as we currently see with our PMO), in addition to well financed lobby groups. 

The intent of the Canadian Senate when it was first formed, was to act as a brake on rampant partisan politics in the Lower House, to provide a "House of Sober Second Thought". While the Senate, since it's inception, has rarely been completely free of partisan politics- Senate seats being regarded as plumb positions for former cabinet ministers, ex-Premiers and political cronies- it has in practice, seldom interfered in the passing of bills put to it by the duly elected Lower House. It would debate a bill, offer criticisms,  recommend said bills to committee and on very rare occasion, delay the passage of a bill it deemed unworthy,  but it would ultimately, never overturn legislation passed through the House of Commons...until now. 

Senator Bert Brown of Alberta with Stephen Harper
Yup, this was a real non-partisan selection.

From 2006 to 2011, while he held successive minority governments, Stephen Harper, counter to his Senate Reform election promises, took sole control of the Senate, showing cronyism and partisanship to a degree never before seen with appointments to the Upper House. In so doing, he took control of the country's legislative process. He used his Senate majority to defeat opposition bills passed through the House of Commons and to ensure bills he supported in the Lower House, survived the scrutiny of the Red Chamber. Now of course, Harper has his fraudulently won majority Government in the House of commons so control of the Senate isn't quite as critical. But because of his desire to quickly cram through massive legislative bills that would drastically alter our country before he is finally voted out of office by Canadians, sickened by the stench of his corrupt regime, he still needs the backing of the Senate in order to ensure a speedy passage of his agenda. 

So it sounded real nice, what Harper said about Senate Reform while on the campaign trail. He has even taken a few half-hearted swipes at the venerable Upper House.  But much like anything else Harper says, what he actually does is completely different (with the exception of his promise of not knowing Canada by the time he's done changing it). Any attempts at reforming the "basic characteristics" of the Senate are unconstitutional if done unilaterally. The Quebec challenge could well prove this true. The constitutionality then, of those so-called "elected" Senators from Alberta could be challenged. Even the eight year "terms" all Harper Senators agreed to after 2008 could be challenged. Look for Senators themselves to open this debate up once Harper buys the farm in 2015. 

Now don't get me wrong. I most certainly feel that, like our election process, our Senate needs to be overhauled. The idea of there being a genuine "House of Sober Second Thought" is not a bad one- that there is a body of learned and scholarly folk somewhere about who can look at a piece of legislation passed through Parliament, separate out the wheat from the chaff and if necessary, send it back to Parliament for further discussion, on to committee for review or simply rubber-stamp it as is.  But to do this effectively (the third "E" in Triple-E Senate) it needs to be free of any and all partisan allegiances. Thus, Senators should not be members of ANY political party despite previous affiliations. Nor should they have the ability to veto anything passed through the Lower House. In my humble opinion, I would rather see Political Professors, Economists, Judges, Artists and Scientists sitting in the Red Chamber rather than defeated election candidates and former football players. People who are learned and can make intelligent, even handed recommendations to the folks in the House of Commons. These people would be the "fine tuners"- in baseball parlance, the "closers", the ones who bring the game to a successful conclusion. They should in no way be confused with the "Voice of the People" that The House of Commons should be, but more of a non-partisan advisory body.  But again, this would significantly change the selection process and thus, require a new round of Constitutional negotiations with the provinces. So don't look for this to happen any time soon. 

But in the mean time, we have to live with a Senate that is about as credible as our current fraudulent Government. They both suffer from the Harper "Smoke and Mirrors" treatment. 

"And now, for my next trick...."