Senatorial Madness, Canadian Style

[dewline]

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?

Comments

[madlycool.livejournal.com]

I think the Refor--- i mean, Conservatives, think Senators are supposed to represent provincial governments, but i don't think they're even supposed to represent provinces. They're selected FROM provinces, but are intended to represent the country as a whole, which is why they have no role in local advocacy, the way Members of the House of Commons do. They're supposed to be above partisan politics (moreso than MPs, anyway). If they become just another layer of politician running for office, we should just get rid of the Senate.

Ireland has more interesting ideas:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seanad

[ex-cath560.livejournal.com]

To a layman it sounds alot like what they did here with the Lords which is kind of double-edged

[jcoville.livejournal.com]

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.