Prime Minister Harper might see himself in the role of Shakespeare’s much maligned Richard III but he must still reap the rewards of his own perfidy. When he sought to carelessly swamp the Liberal Senate with instant senators, ready and willing to do his bidding, he did not choose overly well. In that other place of supposedly sober second thought, there was no guarantee of sobriety, honesty or parsimony. And now what is a Prime Minster to do?
Harper must be keeping constitutional experts burning the midnight oil to find him a way to either rid himself of the Senate or to change its errant ways. While a signatory to the idea of an elected, equal and hopefully effective senate, Harper would probably be happiest just to get rid of the damn place. At a cost of more than $16 million per year for the Senate, Harper probably figures he has enough useless Members of Parliament in his caucus in the House of Commons without paying for more in the Senate.
And what guarantee does he have that a Triple ‘E’ Senate would have a majority of Conservatives. He knows as well as the next politician that an election can be a crap shoot and he could end up with another Liberal dominated Senate.
He wants to rid himself of those pesky Senators. Not the ones that play hockey out in Kanata but the ones who call themselves parliamentarians. And he has a particularly large mad on at the moment for Senators such as Brazeau and Duffy. He sent those guys to the Senate to do what he wanted not for them to do what they wanted. Brazeau can be a bit of a blowhard and he cannot even beat young Trudeau in the boxing ring. New Democrat MP Charlie Angus had the best line in the House of Commons the other day when he asked what Anne of Green Gables and Senator Mike Duffy have in common—they are both fictional residents of Prince Edward Island.
The problem facing the Prime Minister is that the constitutional experts are explaining to him that the only way to get rid of the Senate is with the agreement of the provinces. And he is hardly going to start horse trading with that bunch just because some senators are annoying him.
The problem we have folks is that even if the Prime Minister and the provincial people could ever agree on anything, the Canadian people have the last word. And we all know what happened to the foolish Charlottetown Accord.
The process has to be reversed. We have to start with a popularly elected Constitutional Conference, followed by a referendum. That way, what the provincial politicians think becomes academic as their own people will have had the say. And that is democracy.
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Copyright 2013 © Peter Lowry
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