Reform the Senate? Reduce Its Powers First

The Harper government’s determination to fulfill a longstanding Reform Party dream and foist a provincially elected and empowered Senate on Canada without the constitutional changes required to ensure the primacy of the popularly-elected House of Commons would have disastrous consequences for our parliamentary democracy. If an elected Senate is to be the end, the beginning, the very first step, according to Matthew Mendelsohn, former senior Ontario deputy minister and policy advisor to the federal Privy Council, must be a constitutional amendment to curtail the Senate’s current almost co-equal powers with the House of Commons.

Since Confederation in 1867, the Senate has had the same powers as the Commons except the ability to initiate money bills. The fact it is unelected — and so restrains itself from flexing its muscle – is all that has saved Canada from the gridlock and paralysis frequently observed in the U.S. between the president and Congress and between the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives.

http://www.nationalnewswatch.com/2013/09/17/reform-the-senate-reduce-its-powers-first/

Ottawa’s current approach – elections – to cutting the Senate Gordian knot would make our democratic institutions worse, not better, Mendelsohn continues. “It would lead to a dysfunctional federal parliament, a skewing of political power away from Ontario and Western Canada, and make real democratic reform to the Senate even more difficult to achieve.”