A Cure for What Ails the Senate

If the Senate's as broken as our federal politicians say it is, why don't we just scrap it altogether?

The Conservative government has tabled a Senate reform bill that would introduce nine-year term limits and allow the provinces to hold elections for their representatives in the chamber of sober second thought. The Edmonton Journal's editorialists are concerned that the bill, as it stands, would crank up the partisanship in an institution that was intended to be above that fray. “An elected Senate – without other constitutional modifications – could become a threat to the traditional base of power in the cabinet and in the Commons,” they write. “We might have two elected bodies fighting over which has primacy.” While no one's a defender of the Senate's status quo, the newspaper concludes that “the legislation ... could actually make things worse.”

Over in Moncton, the Times and Transcript welcomes the reform bill as a means of giving the public a bigger voice in Ottawa. “The more say the electorate has in its politics, the healthier our democracy,” the paper's editorialists write. “These are neither radical reforms nor as controversial as some portray them, but they are badly needed.” Senate reform shouldn't end with this bill, though. “The key to making the reforms work will be to ensure there are checks and balances in the federal parliamentary system, as exists in the U.S. system,” they say, calling for more seats for less populous provinces so they aren't drowned out by Ontario, Quebec, and B.C. We suggest that, also like the U.S., senators are afforded a healthy amount of independence from their respective parties so that we're not just electing rubber-stampers.

Alternatively, we could just abolish the Senate altogether, CTV's Craig Oliver offers, or at least hold a referendum for the public to decide what to do with it, as the NDP has suggested. “Canada does not need an upper chamber. The provinces represent the regions far better than it could ever do,” says Oliver, speaking from more than half a century's worth of political reporting experience. “The Senate is a hangover from our colonial past when we were trying to replicate the house of lords out in the bush.” Oliver urges the Tories to hold a constitutional conference to see if anyone thinks the Senate is an “embellishment to our national life.” As it stands, it releases occasionally worthwhile committee reports from time to time, and ... that's about it. Without a compelling argument for keeping the Senate around, getting rid of it altogether increasingly seems like the more sober option.