Have we had a PM or government in the past 60 years or so that respected the Constitutional role of the Senate?
No.
Does that mean the Constitutional role of the Senate is meaningless and the place should be done away with?
No.
What it does mean is that we haven't had a PM and government in over 60 years that respected the Constitution. Not even Pierre.
Harper has treated the Senate as a resort for retired bagmen and thugs and look where it's gotten him. Chretien and Mulroney did the same.
Mulcair, and presumably his squadrons of trained seals as well, would rather eliminate it, I suspect, because they'd prefer to avoid the possible legislative oversight and leave *all* oversight to the various Courts. Which judges would, naturally enough, be appointed by them.
But wouldn't it be marvelous if the Senate was treated with respect and actually *was* a house of sober second thought, a truly non-partisan chamber with no present ties to any political party, populated by Canadians of distinction and probity from all walks of life whose task was to examine proposed legislation to ensure that it would be to the benefit of all.
Because that is in fact it's Constitutional role.
We elect assholes, conmen and shysters, time after time after time, and expect them to behave like honest, upstanding citizens.
We are unworthy inheritors of democratic tradition and soon enough we'll have lost it.
Not because of some small man or woman in a big office somewhere but because we ourselves became distracted and sated and smug.
As well as more and more profoundly stupid and ham fisted even as we became more and more highly educated and specialized.
Blood soaked monkeys, that's us.
Rant over.
A tail dragging romp through the swamps of the world
If a particular institutional arrangement is supposed to do a particular thing, but over the course of sixty years (and probably longer than that) it never ever does, I think we can conclude that the institution is flawed. One can blame each and every individual responsible for running it in that time, but with that track record either the individuals are not to blame, or they are but the particular failing involved is near ubiquitous. Either way, calling for just doing it right next time is in effect calling for a new human nature instead of a different institutional structure--unlikely to succeed.
ReplyDeleteThe Senate strikes me as being rather like the drug war. The drug war was supposed to accomplish certain no doubt laudable goals; it has not, and instead accomplished various much less laudable things. After forty years or so, people are starting to get the message that it would be better to try something else. The current Senate is not a workable structure. It does not accomplish the laudable goals intended for it, and it is not going to start doing so any time soon. It would be better to try something else.
Just what else? An elected Senate would have legitimacy, but that legitimacy would lead to an increase in power; it would cease to be a house of sober second thought and instead become a house of US-style gridlock and deal-cutting. An improvement on balance? Hard to say; I'm inclined to think not, but the results would be very unpredictable and a huge change in the nature of Canadian politics. No Senate at all, on the other hand, would give us results much like what we have now except with one less bucket of corruption cluttering government. Some good, and some very bad, studies would not be done, but government has plenty of people who can do studies and could readily invent a few more.
I do have a vague fondness for the idea of a Senate selected by lottery, like jury duty. Take the corruption right out of the appointment process, at least. I don't see much political feasibility there, though. As a society, we're too elitist, too wannabe meritocratic, to live with the idea of Joe Shmoe at random, unselected, being in such a responsible position.
Same argument equally valid for House of Commons.
ReplyDeleteAll we really need is a Governor General. All the rest is too easy to corrupt.
You know, I would point out that prior to the Harper years the Senate had in fact done its job more often than most appear to be aware of or willing to believe. It did many excellent commission works over the decades prior, one of which was the standout on Marijuana and that was over 40 years ago now! It had in the pre-Harper years when there was a majority of the same party in both Houses rejected legislation from their own government and sent it back to be redrafted or rejected, and this happened more than like once in a decade at that. The reason Canadian women unlike women in any other western nation get to treat abortion as purely a medical issue with their doctors without any criminal or specific legislation in the way is because the Senate refused to pass the Mulroney new anti-abortion laws in the wake of the Morgantaler decision by the Supreme Court. So in the past the Senate actually HAS performed its function, the problem is though when it is performing its function for the most part it stays well below the radar of all but the most anal of process geeks.
ReplyDeleteYes, sure prior PMs used the Senate for party loyalists, including some who were clearly unworthy including some bagmen, but they also in many cases appointed those with a real sense of civic duty as well who took their roles seriously, and that needs to be kept in mind too. It isn't until we get to the Harper appointments that we see what we have seen, a PM appointing personal loyalists to the Senate for the specific reason of controlling it as he was shown to be doing by the time of the Duffy Deloitte audit. Not to mention treating the Senate like it was his private fundraising mechanism in ways no prior PM ever had. We never had a PM abuse process and the roles of the Houses in the way Harper has, and I think it needs to be recognized whenever one talks about the Senate.
I am a Senate reformer because over my lifetime I have seen how the Senate performs an important and useful function, it may not be sexy, it may be boring and dull, but it has been happening more often than most Senate bashers appear aware of or even able to comprehend. If you bother to actually look in detail at the history of the actions of the Senate then it becomes a far less clear cut choice to anyone that actually cares about how we govern ourselves IMHO, and one of the things I find irritating about those that simply say get rid of it is that they appear to be ignoring that reality.
Before I hear another story about how the Provinces got rid of theirs, one of my great grandfathers was one of those Senators in NS who did exactly that, but there is a fair amount of difference between the Provinces and the federal government in how they work, what they oversee, and why there is a need for a second chamber to exercise that "sober second thought" and critical examination without the hyper-partisanship elected members will always have with them.
Bottom line, I tend to be in close agreement overall with Dana in this, both on the Senate and the wider point about how we got here politically which he closes his post with.
There is something to what Scotian says. There have been within my lifetime a number of important Senate decisions that stopped bad legislation or forced its modification. Perhaps the clock could be turned back, and the senate could again be an only moderately useless legislative body, right twice a day, rather than the actively counterproductive thing it has become. Would that be enough to make the senate worth keeping? Welll, maybe. There was a time when I thought so, at this point I'm definitely leaning against, but I won't say the point holds no water.
ReplyDeleteI'm less persuaded by the commissions--there have been some good ones, yes, but there have been plenty of good commissions done by outfits other than the senate too. The senate as a body is kind of unwieldy as a source of studies and commissions; there are better ways of getting that kind of thing to happen.
As to the fundraising, I'm sure past prime ministers didn't appoint their bagmen to the senate so they would stop fundraising; the whole thing might have been either less blatant, or less scrutinized, or both, but it will take some convincing to persuade me that it didn't go on.
I'd have more use for reform if I'd seen a reform seriously proposed which seemed as if it would do any good. Trudeau has this idea of putting a layer of deniability between the prime minister and the senate appointments, but I don't see that as much of an improvement; the PM would, instead of picking the senators, tell the people he picked which senators to pick, and then be able to swear that the patronage appointment was no such thing. Electing the senate is kind of a barrel of worms to open. What then?
. . . Uh, Dana, so you're saying my argument that making the Senate elected would create huge and unpredictable changes is the same for the House of Commons? Really, when it's me saying something you just seem to jettison the idea of engaging reasonably or even parsing what I say.
"If a particular institutional arrangement is supposed to do a particular thing, but over the course of sixty years (and probably longer than that) it never ever does, I think we can conclude that the institution is flawed. One can blame each and every individual responsible for running it in that time, but with that track record either the individuals are not to blame, or they are but the particular failing involved is near ubiquitous. Either way, calling for just doing it right next time is in effect calling for a new human nature instead of a different institutional structure--unlikely to succeed."
ReplyDeleteSame argument equally valid for House of Commons.
Must I do everything for you?
As the French say, Dana, "Ainsi soit-it."
ReplyDeleteOh good lord. Well, meanwhile, talking to the reasonable person in the house . . . Scotian, I'd like to note that your position is actually quite distinct from Dana's. Your position is that the Senate has actually, up until quite recently, been fairly valuable and done us quite a few largely unsung services, and therefore is worth keeping and improving. Dana's explicit position is that the Senate has been a worthless repository for the corrupt for sixty years, and therefore is worth keeping and improving.
ReplyDeleteOf those two arguments, on the face of it one seems to make more sense than the other.
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