Fix, Don't Axe the Senate

Donald J. Savoie of the Institute for Research on Public Policy says

The Senate has few friends left. It has had to struggle for legitimacy almost from birth, and the body blows it has absorbed from the scandals over the past several months have only reinforced the chronic suspicion among most Canadians that it is a legacy of a less democratic era.

The Leader of the Opposition in the Commons has served notice that his party intends to roll up the Senate’s red carpet. Old friends who once called for reform and renewal have either turned on the institution or gone silent. Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall, for one, no longer calls for reform; he wants the chamber abolished. Wall now says provincial governments can look after regional interests, pointing to his role in stopping a hostile takeover of Potash Corp. Even Marjory LeBreton, the outgoing leader of the government in the Senate, recently declared that “Canadians view the Red Chamber as illegitimate,” warning “it must either change or like the old upper houses of our provinces, vanish.”

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