I hear a lot of talk right now about the Senate in Canada and about the need for reform. There has been recently going on problems involving suspended senator Patrick Brazeau, who was suspended from the senate and kicked out of the conservative caucus after being charged with sexual assault, and senator Mike Duffey who is being investigated for his expense claims for his secondary home (as a senator you must live in the province you represent and it is being questioned whether he is in fact doing this).
Senator Patrick Brazeau
Many people are becoming vocal in the need to abolish the Senate or at the very least the need to reform it. Although I think there could be some improvements in the regulation of individual senator’s behavior, I do not think (for the most part) that there needs to be much reform.
First off, The Senate is entrenched in our constitution. Although cabinet and the roles of the prime minister might be barely mentioned in the three hundred plus page document, the senate actually has a decent explanation of both it’s roles and rules. If people believe that we should abolish the senate, that would mean a constitutional amendment. This is not easy. It is not just a simple annexation or simple vote in the house of commons but a very hard process because the government would have to get seven out of the ten provinces on board PLUS over 50% of the country’s overall population. This is not an easy thing to do.
Furthermore, people will complain that the senate doesn’t really do anything, that they’re just a bunch of old men making money for nothing. Well, this is again wrong. Because the senate actually does a lot of work. In the constitution, the senate’s purpose is outlined to add “sober second thought” to parliament. This means that whatever bill is passed in the house of commons, the senate also goes over. The senates purpose is to look at bills that are passed and to go over them in greater detail. They are the ones who comb over and really examine each bill that goes through. This is a very important part in the passing of a bill because without their examining, a bill can get passed that might otherwise have many flaws in it. They’re the ones who make bills stronger and more concrete. Many people might add here that they are also very partisan and will not hesitate to kill a bill if they don’t like it. Well, the majority of senators are conservative so that really wouldn’t happen IF there was a strong party solidarity and sense of partisanship and seeing as that isn’t the case in the senate, they really aren’t worried about killing bills simply because they’re conservative or not. They are more concerned to whether the bill makes good sense and to whether there are any flaws in the bill. If they do kill a bill, it would only be because the bill’s just outright ridiculous. THEY DON’T KILL BILLS FOR NO REASON YO.
So then, people might say “Okay, it’s really hard to abolish the senate, what about just reforming it? What about making terms for senators only 8 or 9 years instead of until their 75?” Well, although 75 might be a very long time, and yes maybe it could be shortened, I do not think it a good idea to make it only 8 or 9 year terms. A reason for this is the fact that for MPs and senators, it usually takes a few years for them to really understand and get in the groove of their job. Many of the MPs in the commons right now are new and are still new to the parliamentary process. When you have a term that lasts until you’re 75, you get a great chance to get really good at your job and really understand how everything works. If we limit senator’s terms to only 8 or 9 years, we may see a decrease in the quality of senators we get. Maybe we’ll get more people like Patrick Brazeau…. Again, even some people will try and claim that senators make too much money. Well they actually make LESS than an MP and they work just as hard as any MP so that really doesn’t hold.
Others may suggest that we should have them elected but this also poses a problem. Who would they represent? They represent provinces, but would they have ridings? Would they have constituents to deal with? Would they have to answer phone calls and go to events? If they’re elected, what kind of election system will we use? SMP, MMP? PR? Also, if their jobs are to comb over bills and legislation (and they do this very well), will they be able to focus on their jobs as well if they’re forced to go to events around their province every weekend? There are many many problems with dealing with elections. Also, how will they decide who gets which senators. Right now Ontario and Quebec has the most senators and this is because those two provinces have the majority of the population of Canada. But should there be an equal number of senators per province? or will we have representation by population…look at the US, they have millions and millions more people in California than in Colorado yet Colorado senators get just as much say as California senators.
There are major problems with these decisions that must be solved and many of them are just not worth solving because many of them just don’t need going over. Don’t forget over all of this that elections cost huge amounts of MONEY.
So with all this, is the senate actually that bad? I don’t think so. They work hard on making sure that government legislation is strong and they follow their job well. Why would we want to waste money on elections and run the risk of being closer to a US government. If both houses are elected then that also gives the chance for senators to feel more liberty to kill bills if they wanted and we could end up with conflicted houses. A Stalemate like Obama’s congress. Nothing would get done.
I do not think that senate reform is an important thing that needs to be achieved and I do not think that we need reform at all. If anything maybe shorten a senator’s term to something less than 75 but even then not much. Don’t forget that a lot of these senators like their jobs! They like doing the work that they do. We should let them do it and not waste time trying to change our constitution.
Menswear addict 