Just abolish it already
The sages have been c hosen. As Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised, he has appointed an “Independent Advisory Board” to recommend candidates to fill 22 Senate vacancies, starting with five in Quebec, Ontario and Manitoba. Trudeau has assembled a group of eight notable Canadians from those provinces, representing a cross- section of professions and backgrounds.
I can personally vouch for the smarts of Daniel Jutras, dean of McGill Law School, and another brilliant legal mind, Murray Segal, with whom I had the good fortune to work at the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General. As f or another panel member, musician and artist Heather Bishop, whom I do not know, I will admit to being concerned by reports that she practices past- life regression to treat phobias. “It could have been in a former lifetime ... Sometimes people will say, ‘ It was from before I was born.’ We go back to how many lifetimes ago,” she told the Ottawa Citizen.
Then again, maybe this will be useful, if a candidate for Senate ran up huge expense accounts in a previous existence.
The i ssue here is not qualifications, however. The point is that the most impeccable of advisors or appointees won’t address the Senate’s fundamental problem: lack of accountability. It’s not who gets in, but that they stay in, without the voters having any say.
An appointed law- making body is the antithesis of popular democracy. It cannot be recalled. It cannot be voted out. No matter how many expense reports you oblige it to file, no matter how high the bar you set for appointments, it remains undemocratic. Unless senators are convicted of a crime, or resign on their own, they retain a sinecure until age 75.
This, not surprisingly, can breed a certain sense of entitlement, especially when it comes to public funds. According to Auditor- General Michael Ferguson, who audited the Senate in 2015, “What struck me was the depth to which a number of senators simply felt that they didn’t have to account for, or they didn’t have to be transparent with, their spending.” Ferguson found that 30 senators — that’s one in three — expensed questionable items, ranging from fishing trips to funerals. Nine cases were referred to police for investigation.
When Mike Duffy and Pamela Wallin were appointed, no one would have predicted that these eminent Canadians would find themselves in the trouble they do today. Ditto Raymond Lavigne, or Mac Harb, or Colin Kenny, or Don Meredith. They all had solid reputations and successful careers. They would likely have passed muster with any committee.
Trudeau has chosen the committee route because he has to do something about the Senate, and real change, such as abolition, faces serious constitutional hurdles. But at the same time, the Prime Minister has promised electoral reform, ostensibly to improve Canadian democracy. So why leave the Senate out of the equation? Why make all this fuss about jettisoning the first-past-the- post system, and yet leave an unaccountable, unelected body in place, one that costs taxpayers $ 90 million a year?
If there is a leader who could make the case to the provinces, it would be Trudeau. He knows their governments want increased federal support for a host of programs. Since he’s prepared to hand it over, why not get something in return? Is a Senate, appointed, elected, or other, really necessary in 2016? A unicameral legislative system would provide just as good, or better, government to Canada. In the rest of the world, countries such as New Zealand, Denmark, Sweden, South Korea, Hungary — indeed, the majority of countries — have unicameral legislatures.
Forget elites recommending elites. Abolishing the Senate would revive Canadians’ faith in democracy and political ethics. It is time that our legislators served at the pleasure of the people, not their own.
THE BEST REVIEW COMMITTEE IN THE WORLD CAN’T GIVE A SENATOR DEMOCRATIC LEGITIMACY.