Another Senate plan right from fantasy land
As the legislature muddled through another day of debate on the teacher dispute, B. C. Liberal MLA John Les introduced a measure billed as “a follow through on our commitment to engage with voters” and “another tangible example of our commitment to support open government.”
Now, engagement- wise, this government is stuck in a mire mostly of its own making. But Premier Christy Clark has been calling for MLAS to help freshen up the agenda, and here was a backbencher and former cabinet minister responding to the call.
Tangibility- wise, one could hardly wait.
Alas, moments into his dissertation, Les unwrapped his contribution: Senate reform.
Yes, one of the hoariest, most fruitless public policy notions of the last century. The back burners and attic shelves of every government in the country groan under the weight of countless failed proposals to elect, equalize and otherwise reform the country’s unelected, unequal and pretty much unreformable upper house.
But there was Les tabling another submission to the political dead letter office. The Senate Election Act, 20 pages, 41 sections, that were strictly from fantasy land. I use those words advisedly. For the last time the legislature debated a bill to allow the public to “elect” senators to fill vacancies in B. C.’ s tiny contingent in the upper house, the government of the day, the Bill Vander Zalm Social Credit administration, was also in serious political trouble and hoping to tap populist sentiment.
The New Democratic Party Opposition of the day let the
bill pass on the theory that it was “virtually meaningless,” as proved to be the case. The prime minister of the day, Brian Mulroney, filled B. C.’ s lone vacancy in the Senate by appointment before the hapless Socreds could contrive to hold their intended election. But the debate in the legislature was not without its diversions, most notably the repartee from the NDP house leader, the incomparable ( now, sadly, late) Mark Rose.
Addressing the then- in- vogue notion of a Triple E Senate (“elected, effective and equal”), Rose said Canada already had one: “Elderly, expensive and expendable.”
He mocked party-patronage-freighted Senate appointments as “a task- less thanks,” the upper house itself as “a repository of political has-beens, bag-men and never-wases.”
When one of the Socreds, a veterinarian, queried the word “repository,” Rose did not miss a beat: “I know you are in the medical business, but it is spelled with an ‘ r’, not an ‘ s’.”
Today’s NDP house leader, John Horgan, couldn’t hope to match Rose’s wit, nor did he try. He did draw the obvious connection between the Les bill and B. C. Liberal anxiety over the voters they are losing in droves to the upstart B. C. Conservative party.
“It is particularly telling that the Conservative MP for Chilliwack came out immediately in support of the bill, along with a Conservative senator from B. C., and ministers in Stephen Harper’s Conservative government,” said Horgan. “The Liberals are trying to bolster their credibility in preparation for calling a byelection in Chilliwack- Hope.”
He also challenged the wisdom of any B. C. government feeding the notion that Senate elections could serve the provincial interest: “B. C. is dramatically underrepresented, with one senator for every 700,000 British Columbians while some provinces have one for every 30,000 residents.”
An election, by lending a veneer of democratic legitimacy to the grossly unfair balance of power in the upper chamber, could only further disadvantage B. C.
The Les bill tries to address fair representation via a “sunset clause.” It would terminate senatorial elections within eight years, should the country fail to rectify the entrenched constitutional “inequality” that allocates a mere six seats to B. C., 10 to smaller provinces like New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.
“We urge the federal government and other provinces to move to a system which is more equitably representative,” said Les.
As exercises in futility go, that one ranks right up there with the effort to rehabilitate the HST. The point was underscored by the senior federal minister for B. C., James Moore. He endorsed the electoral principle in the Les bill as “good news for democracy and good news for our province.”
But he warned that any attempt to change the balance of power in the upper house would require constitutional reform, “which means you have to have seven provinces constituting 50 per cent of the population plus one.” Moreover, “if the Constitution is going to be opened, the Senate will be one of many issues that will come forward and divide the country.”
Opposition house leader Horgan followed at his end by arguing the NDP’S long- standing position, characterized by Rose in his day as “triple A,” meaning “abolish, abolish and abolish.” But that’s no more likely to pass constitutional muster than equalization.
No getting rid of the Senate. No making it fairer. Best that British Columbians ignore it, before we find ourselves taking the place seriously.