dewline: Text - "On the DEWLine" (Default)
On the DEWLine 2.0: Dwight Williams ([personal profile] dewline) wrote2006-09-07 02:50 pm

Senatorial Madness, Canadian Style

Taking a little time off from promoting comics to get just a tad political.

Take a look at what our Prime Minister's trying to push today.

Yeah, our Senate's been a patronage arrangement since almost-forever. So why do I get the feeling that putting an end to it is going to blow up in our nation's collective face, no matter how well-intended?

Opinions, anyone?

[identity profile] jcoville.livejournal.com 2006-09-08 01:05 am (UTC)(link)
I remember in college we had a university political teacher, Dick Tindle who was a PHD in Political Science and we were very lucky to have him.

Anyways he once asked us... if everybody hates politicians, then why on earth would we want MORE of them?

That was his argument against an elected senate.

He did say the Senate was good for one thing, ironing out the legal "rough spots" in bills. Sometimes they'd send a bill to the senate first before it going through the commons. They'd look it over, fix what was dumb about the bill, be it legal language or something else, then it go to the house, go through both the house and the senate with greater ease.

But they couldn't do that with every bill because it would clog the process.

I always though they should take away the Senate, but split the senators into two camps and run bills through them first before going to the house. I know almost all senators are nominated via patronage appointments, but many of them have some actual experience in being a politician or lawyer of some sort and that can be put to good use.

[identity profile] dewline.livejournal.com 2006-09-08 01:13 am (UTC)(link)
If you can't have a five-year-old child to point out the obvious flaws in your Grand Plans, use these guys instead?

(Yep, I read the "Evil Overlord" lists. Seems like a good one to keep bookmarked, especially for a poli-sci student or a comics writer or a novelist.)

At any rate, if we have to set up something else in place of the Senate, then this idea of yours seems like a potentially useful one to keep the conniption fits of the nation to a manageable number. And your professorial acquaintance seems to have had a good head on his shoulders the day(s) he made those comments.