Reform the Senate through better appointments

Canada’s Senate is looming large in the news these days, as it rarely does. This is for two reasons — one good, and one bad.

The good reason is that Prime Minister Stephen Harper, for whom Senate reform has been an enduring obsession, has sensibly asked the Supreme Court for a legal opinion on the constitutionality of his proposed reforms, before pushing ahead politically with them. The bad is that a handful of senators are prominently suspected of playing fast and loose with rules governing their residency and expenses. And one of them, Patrick Brazeau, is now facing assault and sexual assault charges. His fellow senators have voted to put him on forced leave of absence while his case is heard, though he will continue to collect his $132,000 year Senate wage in the meantime. If found guilty, he is liable to be expelled.

Meanwhile, the Upper Chamber’s internal-economy committee has been assigned to review the residency claims of Brazeau and three other senators to verify whether their principal residences are in the provinces they represent, as per Senate rules, and whether they are entitled to travel expenses between Ottawa and such residences as they have in their districts.

The alleged senatorial shenanigans have prompted fresh calls for reforming the Senate — and even doing away with it altogether.

Abolition has long been the New Democratic Party’s favoured option, along with that of a third of those Canadians who cared enough to venture an opinion on the issue in a recent poll. Harper has long championed reform, and his government has tabled legislation to institute fixed Senate terms of nine years, and to have senators elected under the auspices of provincial governments.

However, neither of these options is readily feasible nor particularly desirable.

For all its repute as a haven for political hacks, party bag men and personal friends of the powerful, the Senate quietly does much good work, scrutinizing legislation passed by the House of Commons and conducting indepth studies on such things as assisted suicide and, most recently, the nagging CanadaU.S. price gap. Abolishing the Senate would probably require a constitutional amendment approved by all provinces, something that can realistically be dreamed of at best.

The prime minister’s fixation on Senate reform goes back to his days in the one-time Reform Party, whose dream it was to have an elected Senate with equal representation from all provinces. This, too, would have required provincial approval that would never have been forthcoming. Just picture Quebec or Ontario agreeing to the same number of Senate seats as Prince Edward Island.

While electing senators would give the Upper Chamber a measure of democratic legitimacy it now lacks, this would not necessarily be a good thing. Opponents of an elected Senate reasonably point out that an elected upper body would then want commensurate powers and take it upon itself to thwart Commons legislation. The inevitable result would be U.S.-style legislative gridlock that our par- liamentary system has hitherto been mercifully spared.

Harper had taken the position that his proposed reforms could be enacted by the simple expedient of federal legislation, without having to resort to a constitutional amendment or provincial consent. This is by no means certain, and Quebec had already served notice that it would challenge his position in court.

In putting his legislation on hold and going himself to the highest court for a ruling on the matter, the prime minister has at least avoided the prospect of proceeding with his reforms only to have them later ruled unconstitutional. This would have been a supremely messy business.

Perhaps the best advice on Senate reform under the circumstances has come from Liberal member of Parliament Justin Trudeau, who suggested the prime minister simply confine himself to appointing senators of higher quality — ones less likely to cause Harper embarrassment, as some of his own nominees have done of late.