Canadian Senate Analysis

Canadian Senate Analysis The current government of Canada has remained in place since the British North America Act, 1867, which established the Parliament for Canada to be comprised of three parts: the Crown, the Senate, and the House of Commons. [1] Unique to Canada’s government, which is based on the Westminster Parliamentary System, is that the upper house of parliament, or the Senate, is comprised of unelected officials. For a large portion of Canada’s history there has been a debate concerning the Senate, largely concerning its unelected officials. While there has consistently been a discussion on if the Senate should be changed, Canada’s political parties cannot agree on if this change should be a reform of the Senate or its abolishment. In recent years this debate has been revitalized due to scandals concerning senators, Stephen Harper’s commitment to reform the Senate, and the Supreme Court ruling on what would need to be done to reform the Senate. While it is understan dable that some may want to push for the Senate to be abolished, this is much too drastic of a step for Canada to take and should not be taken just for simplicity’s sake. Democracies function and exist on mechanisms that help balance the power of the governing bodies to ensure that no one body or official has too much power and abolishing the Senate before attempting to reform it would give the House of Commons too much power. Prime Minister John MacDonald’s words are often used in explaining what the Senate does when he said that they are â€Å"the sober second thought.† [2] The reasoning for this is that by having politicians that are concerned for the long term stability and integrity of Canada and its laws and not concern themselves about being reelected and the perpetual campaign or about politics. Essentially they can give their full attention to being the check on the House of Commons. In addition, section 54 of the Canadian Constitution states that bill s which deal with any aspect of money, including appropriating revenue or creating or removing a tax, must originate from the House of Commons. [3] What this then causes, because most bills deal with issues of revenue or taxes in some manner, the vast majority of bills come from the House of Commons, which creates a unique dynamic between the two houses. [4] The dynamic that is crated is an uneven balance between the two in terms of the amount of work that is done. The House of Commons is the primary body that creates legislation and the Senate largely provides review and second thought on the issues addressed in legislation. While this may be the original thought, there are flaws to it. Many ideas on how to change the Senate have been proposed over the years, but to understand the current debate the most it is best to look at what each major political party current proposes. Currently the common discourse about the Senate is divided into three areas: main the status quo; keep the Senate, but reform it; or abolish the Senate in its entirety. Political parties of Canada have often differed on how the Senate should be approached and dealt with along the three lines. The New Democratic Party (NDP), especially in recent years, has been vocal proponents of abolishing the senate. The NDP has even gone as far as creating a website to promote the idea of abolishing the Senate, citing its unelected nature and high costs as reasons for it to be abolished. [5] The Conservative Party, on the other hand, has taken a different route and has attempted to reform it. Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party attempted to create a system whereby senators would be elected by the provinces for nine years. [6] The legislation that proposed this came in 2011, but the constitutionality of this effort immediately came into question and went to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court responded in 2014 when it ruled that any Senate reform must go be approved by at least seven provinces and half of the population. [7] The Liberal Party has not been as loud as the others, but did eject the senators that were part of the Liberal Caucus and released a statement declaring their support for reform of the Senate and the ejection of the senators from the caucus is the first step. [8] Each of the major political is in favor of some change to the Senate, which is a reflection of the opinion of Canadians.