Give the Senate a rest
For over two decades our politics was distracted by demands for Senate reform. Now its abolition is all the rage.
The demand that the Senate should be made many, many times more expensive than it is and play a large and allegedly necessary role in our government has been replaced by the demand that it be abolished as a useless expense.
Many may say: “If it can’t be reformed, it should be abolished.” But legally it would be more difficult to abolish than to reform.
My own position has been the reverse. As it might be reformed it were better abolished, as all the suggested reforms are stupid.
All our politicians have offered us has been mindless posturing: Stephen Harper’s fitful feints at reform. Justin Trudeau’s fatuous decree that Senate Liberals are no longer Liberals. Tom Mulcair’s mission impossible abolition.
The only responsible route to abolition would be by referendum. It should be possible to whip up a strong majority in favour of abolition. But the Constitution cannot be amended by referendum. All provincial governments have to consent. And the provincial governments would likely want to exact a price for their consent. So simply abolishing the Senate would not be so simple.
A strong enough majority might be enough to persuade most provincial governments to consent without exacting concessions from Ottawa. But in at least two provinces there might be no majority for abolition.
Prince Edward Island is guaranteed four times more seats in the House of Commons than its population justifies by a provision that it must have as many seats in the Commons as it has in the Senate, four.
And Quebec? Québécois voters could easily be persuaded to exercise Quebec’s fabled constitutional veto just for the hell of it.
Funnily enough, the only body that can’t stop the Senate’s abolition is the Senate. Under Section 47 of the Constitution Act, 1982, the constitution can be amended without the Senate’s consent 180 days after approval by the Commons. The Senate can delay an amendment, but not stop it. So we shouldn’t need a “suicide squad” of senators pledged to abolition as New Zealand needed when it abolished its equivalent of the Senate in 1950.
Stephen Harper’s latest, rather desperate, ploy — a moratorium on appointments — can only be temporary. Section 32 of the Constitution Act, 1867 says the Governor General “shall” appoint Senators to fill vacan- cies. No time limit is set, but we can count on it that, despite the curiously contested meaning of “shall” in the law, eventually the Supreme Court of Canada will order appointments. Even a Prime Minster Mulcair may have to make appointments.
The NDP’s anti-Senate position is obtuse. The post-war Labour government in Britain, made of much sterner stuff than today’s NDP, though it trimmed the powers of the House of Lords, had no hesitation in appointing hereditary peers. It’s all very well for the NewD emocratic Party to wish there were no Senate. But there is and there will be. There are plenty of senior New Democrats who could serve well in the Senate, if they weren’t so priggish. What is to be done? There is no constitutional requirement that Senators be paid at all. Their salaries could be cut to a modest retainer with allowances for attendance and chairing committees. Allowable expenses should not only be strictly defined but severely limited. The present extravagant provision for office and administration expenses is quite unnecessary.
This would remove the complaint that a Senate appointment is a patronage plum. There would still be plenty of good people willing to serve in what has been and should be for the most part a part-time job.
Appointment must remain as it is under the Constitution, by the Governor General on the advice of the government. Any procedure practically passing the power to a committee of worthies, on the false analogy of some House of Lords appointments in the United Kingdom, could run afoul of the Supreme Court of Canada.
This idea, vaguely adumbrated by Justin Trudeau, is supported by distinguished academics. The Senate would be a consultative assembly of experts. As academics pass for experts, we should not be surprised.
In 1926 Henri Bourassa said in the House of Commons that talk of Senate reform “comes periodically like other forms of epidemic and current fever.” Talk of reform or abolition of the Senate has been endemic in Canada for 30 years. No good has come of it. If we could all just give it a rest, the disease would die out and a Senate of modestly compensated seniors respected for their experience and sense of public service could tidy up legislation and make useful reports, as the Senate has done, largely unnoticed, for the last 148 years.
Canadians have been talking about reform for 30 years. And most of the proposals thus far have been stupid