The only change that matters is eliminating the Senate, or at least making them elected.
this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2024
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In principle, I like the idea of having a check on Parliament. Not a block that can prevent things from happening, but something that can slow things down a bit when necessary and maybe cause Parliament to rethink what they're up to or moderate their actions. In general, I think the Senate is reasonably effective at that.
In principle, I like the idea of some kind of regional representation. Not so much that the province with small populations can stand in the way of sound national policy, but enough to limit the exploitation of those provinces in favour of the ones with larger populations. I'm not sure that the Senate has been as effective in that regard as it could have been.
I really like the idea that no Senator can be an active member of any political party. They should all sit as independents. In fact, I would argue that no Senator should ever have been sitting member of Parliament, and maybe not even held party membership for at least a decade.
Finally, I would like to experiment with sortition (random selection instead of political appointments or elections) and a properly constrained, yet not powerless Senate seems like the perfect place to try it out.
I think I'm with you more or less. I don't mind an intelligent, appointed Senate that takes their work seriously and isn't explicitly partisan. I'd also like to see the regional representation improved, and the term limits should probably be way shorter.
Oh yes, the term limits should be reduced. But one thing I like about the appointment system (also easily managed under sortition) is that individual terms are just that, individual. That is, there isn't a wholesale sweep of all sitting members at once, the way there is with Parliament.
I don't know how something like that could be managed in a purely elected body and think it's worth keeping. I suppose there wouldn't really be a problem with having everyone elected via what we now call byelection.
That makes me wonder if party politics, campaigning, and electioneering would change if Parliamentary terms were individualized instead of globalized to the Parliament as a whole.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Senate reform was a hot topic at the time, spurred to prominence by an expenses scandal and competing proposals for change.
"One of the things that has happened as a result of the [reforms] is that the culture of the institution has changed," said Paul Thomas, a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Manitoba who has studied the Senate.
He said that while he disagreed with the initial motivations for reforming the Senate (he argued it worked better than most people thought), there have been some positive results from the new climate of non-partisanship.
The new Senate has had to deal with contentious and divisive issues, ranging from medical assistance in dying to carbon tax exemptions.
Votes on amendments to C-234, which would have exempted some farming activity from the carbon tax, split several of the various new groupings in the Senate — another sign that the body has grown more independent.
Trudeau's appointments have reshaped the Senate but polling indicating the Liberals are poised to lose the next election to the Conservatives now raises questions about whether the changes are durable.
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