The Rants of Issachar
Thursday, May 26, 2005
On the Senate. (Again)...
CB made a comment on my last posting about the senate that got me thinking again. Maybe some day CB will stop posting Anonymously and then signing the post anyway. :P
He brought up with the Triple-E senate idea that Preston Manning introduced when he headed the Reform Party. Triple-E is just a nice soundbite to sum up an elected senate with equal number of senators per province. (Elected, Equal & Effective).
The only problem I see with a Triple-E senate is the issue of small provinces being equally represented in the senate with Ontario. The Americans have that, but they also have 50 states which mitigates the problem of a single state have disproportionate clout. A small state in the US has only 1/50th of the votes. A small province in Canada would have 1/10th of the votes. Of course equality of states is the entire point of the US senate model.
By contrast the entire point of the Westminster system was in CB's words: "the aristocracy given[sic] a somber second thought to the lunatic ravings of the great unwashed mob in the commons". Today, either the aristocracy has been replaced with the pseudo-aristocrats of old money political friends or the senate exists to give the executives of political parties control over legislation regardless of what the voters want. Either way the senate is an embarassment. If they really believed in democracy every single sitting senator would vote down every single piece of legislation until real senate reform began. As it is, they're contributing to an anti-democratic institution.
Paul Martin claims to believe in democratic renewal but his actions (mirror here) speak louder than his words. Alberta held elections for senate nominees in November of 2004. Martin appointed his own choices. Alberta had three seats empty at the time, and they even elected four nominees to let Mr. Martin avoid one choice if he couldn't stomach the person Albertans chose. I guess he couldn't stomach any of them. How fortunate for us that he knows better than the voters who can represent them.
So the only problem I see with a Triple-E senate is the problem of a single province controlling a tenth of the vote. But there is no solution to this problem. We only have 10 provinces, so the problem cannot be avoided. Any attempt to get rid of the problem merely turns the senate into a second House of Commons and there's no point to that.
So I demand a Triple-E senate. Terms to be set at 6 years. I say 6 because I think the Americans have the right idea with not replacing their entire senate all at once. Roughly 1/3 of the senators are replaced every two years which means the senate tends not to have dramatic policy shifts. Oh, and can I anyone justify the fact that you need to own at least $4000 in property to be appointed to the senate?
There's only a couple more things. Not all ridings in the Commons are equal. I wasn't able to quickly google up some hard numbers, but I believe that at least one of the atlantic provinces was guaranteed a certain number of seats in the commons. The effect of which has been that if there are 1000 voters per MP in Manitoba, there are only 750 voters per MP in PEI. (For example). With an equal senate giving less populous provinces bigger clout, we don't need this ineffective attempt at regional represenation. Each riding should have as close to an equal number of voters as possible without making gerrymandering easier.
While we're at it, we can set the terms of the house to 4 years. Fixed elections to coincide with the senate elections.
You know what I just realized? I'm not a constitutional monarchist anymore... Funny how things change. But let's not bother abolishing the monarchy. Unlike our senate it's not hurting anybody.
He brought up with the Triple-E senate idea that Preston Manning introduced when he headed the Reform Party. Triple-E is just a nice soundbite to sum up an elected senate with equal number of senators per province. (Elected, Equal & Effective).
The only problem I see with a Triple-E senate is the issue of small provinces being equally represented in the senate with Ontario. The Americans have that, but they also have 50 states which mitigates the problem of a single state have disproportionate clout. A small state in the US has only 1/50th of the votes. A small province in Canada would have 1/10th of the votes. Of course equality of states is the entire point of the US senate model.
By contrast the entire point of the Westminster system was in CB's words: "the aristocracy given[sic] a somber second thought to the lunatic ravings of the great unwashed mob in the commons". Today, either the aristocracy has been replaced with the pseudo-aristocrats of old money political friends or the senate exists to give the executives of political parties control over legislation regardless of what the voters want. Either way the senate is an embarassment. If they really believed in democracy every single sitting senator would vote down every single piece of legislation until real senate reform began. As it is, they're contributing to an anti-democratic institution.
Paul Martin claims to believe in democratic renewal but his actions (mirror here) speak louder than his words. Alberta held elections for senate nominees in November of 2004. Martin appointed his own choices. Alberta had three seats empty at the time, and they even elected four nominees to let Mr. Martin avoid one choice if he couldn't stomach the person Albertans chose. I guess he couldn't stomach any of them. How fortunate for us that he knows better than the voters who can represent them.
So the only problem I see with a Triple-E senate is the problem of a single province controlling a tenth of the vote. But there is no solution to this problem. We only have 10 provinces, so the problem cannot be avoided. Any attempt to get rid of the problem merely turns the senate into a second House of Commons and there's no point to that.
So I demand a Triple-E senate. Terms to be set at 6 years. I say 6 because I think the Americans have the right idea with not replacing their entire senate all at once. Roughly 1/3 of the senators are replaced every two years which means the senate tends not to have dramatic policy shifts. Oh, and can I anyone justify the fact that you need to own at least $4000 in property to be appointed to the senate?
There's only a couple more things. Not all ridings in the Commons are equal. I wasn't able to quickly google up some hard numbers, but I believe that at least one of the atlantic provinces was guaranteed a certain number of seats in the commons. The effect of which has been that if there are 1000 voters per MP in Manitoba, there are only 750 voters per MP in PEI. (For example). With an equal senate giving less populous provinces bigger clout, we don't need this ineffective attempt at regional represenation. Each riding should have as close to an equal number of voters as possible without making gerrymandering easier.
While we're at it, we can set the terms of the house to 4 years. Fixed elections to coincide with the senate elections.
You know what I just realized? I'm not a constitutional monarchist anymore... Funny how things change. But let's not bother abolishing the monarchy. Unlike our senate it's not hurting anybody.
