Reading the rambling discourses of the pundits, you would think that the current outcry against the Senate is easy to solve by simply abolishing the place. If it was that simple, we would have been quit of the foolish waste of money in the last century. What all these pundits are missing is that we also have to replace the Senate with something that would bring balance back to our system of government.
If the Senate is not working as a safeguard in our parliamentary system, it needs to be replaced. Canada has to have protections to preserve its democracy. When devised, almost 150 years ago, the Senate was that protection. It was never considered back then that a government, such as the current one, would corrupt the Senate by wholesale, ill-considered appointments. Harper’s Conservatives are reaping what they sowed.
But the Senate is only a part of the problem. Nothing will be solved if we just dump it and try to carry on. If you thing the current parliament is useless, just wait until there is no Senate and there is no recourse for democracy but the courts. The Supreme Court can barely function under its current case load. And the Prime Minister’s Office already has far too much power.
In 2017 Canada will be celebrating 150 years as a nation. It was nice of Queen Victoria to be supportive of the creation of our nation but she can hardly object if we now take a thorough look at where we are and where we need to be.
Like many countries founded that far back, our democracy is more of an ideal than a fact. Canada was an idea of that generation and, in 1867, a modern democracy was hardly more than a glimmer in the distance of time.
We can make it that ideal if we citizens decide that we want to. Sure there are all kinds of safeguards to prevent any wholesale changes in Canada’s Constitution because that is the way it is done. In the United States of America, there are so many restrictions on change that the country just bumbles along from one government crisis to the next.
Only the people of the country have the power to make change. The Supreme Court, if it ever rules, will tell Stephen Harper that he does not have the power to abolish the Senate. Only we can do what Harper cannot. If Canadians vote for a constitutional conference, we will have one. If Canadians vote in a referendum for some changes, they will be made. For that is the only democratic way to change how we are governed.
-30-
Copyright 2013 © Peter Lowry
Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]