Letter-writers urge Harper to end Senate

OTTAWA — Conservative senators aren’t the only ones divided over the Harper government’s Senate reform plans: letters from Canadians to the Prime Minister’s Office show some pressing for change, and others calling outright for the upper chamber’s demise.

A handful of letter-writers asked Prime Minister Stephen Harper to align himself with the opposition NDP, who have called for the Senate to be abolished.

In the past six months, the Senate has faced some bad press — from Sen. Patrick Brazeau’s poor attendance record, to controversy about how senators spend their housing allowance, to Sen. Joyce Fairbairn’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis and subsequent notice she will step down.

The majority of letterwriters expressed frustration that the Senate Reform Act was taking so long to move through the legislative process. A few asked why the Harper government hadn’t made it a larger priority given its majority in the Commons and the Senate.

The letters to Harper were released to Postmedia News under access to information laws. The names of the writers were redacted.

A February email from someone who describes themselves as a Conservative supporter questioned the “incremental approach” the government was taking on Senate reform, and asked whether having two elected chambers on Parliament Hill would be “opening Pandora’s Box” creating legislative gridlock between the House of Commons and Senate.

Another letter said an elected Senate would not give sober second thought to legislation from the House, instead voting along party lines — although the letter doesn’t mention the fact that party lines already exist in the Senate. Yet another letter suggests turning the Senate into a 100-seat chamber with seats distributed to parties based on the popular vote in the Commons and allowing parties to appoint nominees to the positions.

Changing how provinces are represented in the Senate would require the approval of seven provinces with at least half the country’s population. Abolishing the Senate would require unanimous consent of every province. In either case, the outcome is a constitutional amendment that the government says it wants to avoid.

The government’s Senate reform legislation is at second reading in the House of Commons and has yet to be sent to committee for review. It has been about a year and a half since the bill was first introduced into the Commons, and the government has not given any indication of when it will proceed to a vote at second reading.

Liberals in the Senate have shown lukewarm support for the bill, pointing out that it lacks a dispute resolution mechanism should the two elected houses ever disagree over a piece of legislation. Some Tory senators have expressed concern with the bill, which would set term limits for those appointed since October 2008.

Provinces have also had mixed reactions to the bill. Ontario’s outgoing premier, Dalton McGuinty, suggested the Senate be abolished. In Atlantic Canada, the reception to the bill was “lukewarm,” according to an email sent to the Privy Council Office’s director of democratic reform, Matthew Lynch.

“They like the idea of senators with a democratic mandate but not the idea of elections,” PCO staffer Megan Furi wrote to Lynch.