The Long & Winding Road

A long time ago, from the 1990's to 2008 the Conservative Party advocated for Senate reform. Back then, even our current Prime Minister stood for reform to the upper house, but when word came that a coalition might knock him off his pedestal of self-satisfaction, he quickly appointed over a dozen senators. Despite being off the current political agenda and the hearts and minds of the populace, will the Senate be reformed, and if it is, how?

The Conservatives do want to reform the Senate in the form of 8-year term limits on future Senators, a clear departure from the current process of serving until the age of 75. This attempt also wishes for provinces to elect future Senators. The Liberals are crying foul claiming that a change to the Senate would require an alteration to the Constitution, I believe they are correct with that claim. As we know though every attempt to alter the Constitution has nearly torn the nation apart. If we are to proceed down this road, we must move forward with great reserve.

Reforming the Senate in this manner resolves the issue of patronage, but keeps a clear and definitive problem within our plain sight that many are failing to see. In the face of three minority governments in a row, and a fourth one coming, the make-up of the upper body could easily differ from the lower body. A Conservative win in the Commons and a Liberal victory in the red room would create even more tension on the hill. Just what we need: more divisive politics. Two parties claiming to have won an election is the stuff that civil wars are made out of.

Manitoba, Nova Scotia and perhaps most importantly Quebec all had legislative bodies similar to the Senate on the provincial level. After much debate in Quebec, it too was abolished just as so many other provinces had done away with in the late 1800's and early 1900's. Their Legislative Assembly's function better without that bureaucratic slow down, and yet the will of the people is still respected. No province has an upper body any longer; it is only now exclusively confined to the federal government.

At the end of the day, the current Senate is simply representing associates of the PMO, and an elected Senate could easily cause more minority governments and divisive government. Perhaps rather than maintaining or reforming the legislative body, we should simply turn to unicameralism like so many other parliamentary democracies have. They all are effective and speed up the initiating of laws while cutting back on pointless procedures. We don't need to reform the Senate ladies and gentlemen, we need to abolish it.