Canadians divided on Senate abolition
About 41 per cent of Canadians would support abolishing the Senate, Ottawa’s greatest wellspring of gossip, scandal and outrage. Another 45 per cent want it reformed, while only 14 per cent think it should be left as it is, according to an Angus Reid Institute poll.
“The status quo is not an option,” said Shachi Kurl, senior vice-president of Angus Reid, which conducted the poll in March.
Fewer than one in five respondents acknowledged they are actually following Senate issues in the news, but that obscurity is likely to lift this week as the rules of Senate business are put under intense judicial scrutiny in an Ottawa courtroom, where suspended senator Mike Duffy’s fraud trial begins Tuesday.
The Duffy case coincides with the sexual assault case against suspended senator Patrick Brazeau, which will resume next month; with a criminal investigation into the expenses of suspended senator Pamela Wallin; and an investigation by the auditor general of the expenses of other senators. News that three dozen have been asked to explain questionable expenses also led to a memorable exchange last week between Sen. Nancy Ruth and journalists, in which she responded to questions about her meal expenses by lamenting the quality of airplane breakfasts of “ice cold Camembert and broken crackers.”
Only 16 per cent of poll respondents said their views of the Senate will inform their vote in the coming election, expected in the fall. This could change, however, if the revelations of the Duffy trial are as sensational as they have been built up to be, or if more scandal emerges from the auditor general’s report, expected in June.
“It doesn’t take just complaints about cold cheese to see that Canadians want change,” Kurl said.
“The question to watch going forward will be at what effort and cost. We’ve tried big constitutional changes in the past, and that becomes this very fraught, complex process.”
There is an interesting historical trend to the numbers, which suggests support for abolition might have peaked in November 2013, after months of revelations about the role played by Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s then chief of staff, Nigel Wright, in the Duffy saga. Then, a solid 50 per cent voted for abolition, and a mere seven per cent said it should stay as it is. At the time, reform attracted about the same level of support as it does now.
A few months later, the Supreme Court of Canada clarified the strict limits and conditions on any Senate reform, ruling that the consent of seven provinces and half the country’s population is required to set term limits or allow senators to be elected, and unanimous provincial consent for abolition.
“We’re essentially stuck with the status quo for the time being,” said Harper in response.
The Angus Reid poll found no federal leader inspires great confidence on the matter, with a solid third of respondents answering “none of the above” to a question about which leader they trust most to deal with Senate issues.
The online poll of 1,500 Canadian adults was conducted March 11-12.