Mulcair Senate strategy lacking

Given how serious Thomas Mulcair claims to be about an NDP promise to abolish the Senate, one would have thought his interim plan for dealing with the red chamber might be a little more robust than, “ahh, that’s for Future Me to worry about.”

That was, essentially, his message recently when asked how an NDP government would have legislation passed, given it currently has no senators, won’t appoint any if elected, and won’t even designate a government leader to shepherd its bills through.

“Well, the Senate is going to have to realize there’s a government that’s just been elected with, I would hope, a majority in the House of Commons,” Mulcair said in an interview with the CBC’s Peter Mansbridge.

“And when that legislation is enacted, or at least adopted by the people who have been put there by Canadian voters, they’re going to be given the legislation and asked to pass it in turn so that it can be promulgated into law in the country.”

It’s difficult to fathom a situation in which Parliament wouldn’t eventually grind to a halt as a consequence of this plan (never mind what happens when, at some point down the line, retirements put far more power in the hands of increasingly fewer people, eventually jeopardizing quorum).

Enough. No one is happy with the Senate now (with the possible exception of the remaining senators) but shrugging shoulders and ignoring it the way Mulcair and Conservative leader Stephen Harper — the two men who are, at the moment anyway, most likely to be the next prime minister of Canada — have done isn’t an acceptable response.

Liberal leader Justin Trudeau has been criticized for being too wishy-washy on several topics, but when it comes to the Senate, at least his approach is clear and grounded in reality. Appointing a “non-partisan” commission comprised of eminent Canadians to suggest selections might not take all the partisanship out of the Senate, but at least the process would be more stringent than asking “which bagmen and failed candidates do I owe favours to?”

Mulcair may believe that every provincial premier in Canada will join him in breezing through the constitutional talks required to abolish the Senate, despite the fact few of them seem too keen about the idea, or he might be hoping a constitutional crisis brings pressure to bear on the various players. At this point, those scenarios look like little more than fantasy.

So, Mr. Mulcair, what’s the real plan?