Newest senator to push for reform
Alberta’s newest senator pledged to continue fighting for a fully elected Senate as she takes her seat in the upper chamber.
Betty Unger, a former registered nurse, finished second to Senator Bert Brown in the 2004 senator-in-waiting elections. She was one of seven new senators Prime Minister Stephen Harper named Friday.
“I’m honoured and truly grateful,” Unger said from her Edmonton home.
She thanked the prime minister, then Albertans “for making me second to Senator Brown. I’ll truly do my best,” she said, pledging to pursue democratic reform from her new seat.
“I truly believe Canadians need to elect all of their politicians,” she said.
Unger said Harper indicated he would like her to work with Tim Uppal, minister of state for democratic reform. As a former nurse, she said she hopes to also work on health care.
Unger fills a vacancy created when Liberal Senator Tommy Banks reached the mandatory age of retirement of 75 in December.
Unger comes with solid Conservative credentials. She first got involved in politics seeking to be the Reform party candidate for senator-in-waiting in 1998, then ran as the Canadian Alliance candidate in Edmonton-centre in 2000, and adopted the provincial Progressive Conservative banner when she ran to become senator-in-waiting in 2004.
She was “seriously contemplating” a run for senator-inwaiting again during the provincial election expected this spring, but had not yet decided whether to run under the Wildrose or Progressive Conservative banner, she said.
Now she won’t have to decide. Link Byfield, who was elected senator-in-waiting with Unger, but as an independent, called Unger “generous and very dedicated.”
After 2004, they travelled across Canada together lobbying other provincial governments to hold Senate elections.
“Betty’s just naturally connected to the grassroots. She’ll be determined to be a populist senator,” said Vitor Marciano, who will run for senator-inwaiting under the Wildrose banner in the spring.
When Unger was elected senator-in-waiting in 2004, it was for a six-year term. She was gearing up for a new campaign in 2008 when former Premier Ed Stelmach extended the current terms instead of holding another election.
Unger protested that decision publicly.
“It was sending the wrong message to Albertans,” she said Friday.
Premier Alison Redford has promised to hold a new Senate election in conjunction with the next provincial election.
She congratulated Unger in a statement issued Friday: “I am delighted that Prime Minister Harper is recognizing the democratic wishes of Albertans in his appointment of Betty Unger to the Senate. Betty has worked hard to advance Senate reform and I congratulate her on this new opportunity to work for Albertans within the federal government.”
There are two upcoming vacancies. Brown reaches his mandatory retirement age of 75 next year, and Liberal Senator Joyce Fairbairn will retire in 2014.
Albertans will likely elect three senators-in-waiting this spring to have a spare, said a spokeswoman for the premier’s office.
On Friday, Harper also appointed Ottawa police Chief Vernon White; former Newfoundland Tory MP Norman Doyle; Joanne Buth, presi- dent of the Canola Council of Canada; Ghislain Maltais, a former member of the Quebec legislature; and Dr. Asha Seth, a Toronto physician.
Harper announced his intention to appoint Jean-guy Dagenais, a defeated Tory candidate in last year’s federal election and a former peace officer with Quebec’s provincial police force.
Since coming to power in early 2006, Harper has named 46 Conservative senators, including renaming several failed Tory federal election candidates.
Here appointed fabian manning and Larry Smith to the red chamber in May after they resigned and failed to win a seat in the House of Commons in last May’s federal election. Former Conservative cabinet minister Josee Verner was also appointed after voters punted her from the Commons.
Filling the seven vacancies will boost the Conservatives’ majority in the upper chamber to a solid 61 of 105 seats.
The postings come with a base salary of $132,300.
The harper government has for years vowed to reform the upper chamber, but change has been slow.
The government’s Senate Reform Act , which is still before the House of Commons, would limit new senators’ terms to nine years and establish guidelines for provinces to voluntarily hold Senate nominee elections.
However, the act wouldn’t be binding on the prime minister or governor general when making appointments to the Senate.
The Tory reforms set out a process by which a prime minister might appoint senators who are selected through provincial or municipal elections. It’s up to the provinces, however, to hold the elections and to pay for them — something many provinces have said they won’t do.
Alberta is the only province to ever hold Senate elections.
Quebec has threatened to fight the Senate reform legislation in court, while other premiers, such as Ontario’s Dalton Mcguinty and British Columbia’s Christy Clark, have called for the Senate to be abolished.
New Brunswick’s David Alward recently announced his government will introduce legislation to elect Senate nominees.
Betty’s
just naturally connected to the grassroots. She’ll be determined to be a populist senator
VITOR MARCIANO