The long, uncertain path to Senate reform

 "Two of the most controversial cases heard by the Supreme Court of Canada recently both happen to involve lines of work not always held in high repute. There was the prostitution case, in which the court ruled last month that laws around the sale of sex violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms by exposing prostitutes to grave danger and gave the federal government a year to reform the laws. And then there’s the matter of the Senate. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has asked the judges, in what is called a “reference,” to give their opinion on his plan to set term limits for senators and appoint them based on the results of elections. The key question is: Can the federal government make these reforms unilaterally, or does it need most, or even all, of the provinces to agree?"

http://www2.macleans.ca/2014/01/03/public-enemy-no-1/

7/50 majority

British Columbia joins in.

The Senate is a three ring circus

Paul Wells writes more 

They seem so far away now, the days when Pamela Wallin and Mike Duffy were just nice people on TV bringing you the news.

Now both of these former journalists are senators embroiled in an expense-account scandal that threatens to end their late-blooming political careers in disgrace. More important, the uproar over the Senate scandal threatens to bring down the entire upper house of Parliament, the stately red-lined chamber of what used to be called “sober second thought.”

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Documents from the coming court battles over Senate reform

From Paul Wells

In my column for the issue of Maclean’s that started to appear on newsstands today, I write about the uproar over the Senate that began with Mac Harb and Patrick Brazeau and Pamela Wallin and Mike Duffy and is headed straight to the Supreme Court of Canada.

Most Canadians are not aware that the federal government has asked the Supremes’ opinion, via a so-called “reference” case, on a set of reform options. Still fewer are aware that there’s another reference, in Quebec Appeals Court, over the Quebec government’s challenge to the latest (of eight!) bill from the Harper government on Senate reform, C-7. The cases substantially overlap — so much so that the feds sent lawyers to invite the Quebec Appeals Court to drop its reference while the Supremes heard the federal reference. No dice. The Quebec reference will be argued in oral hearings in Montreal on Sept. 10 and 11. The federal reference will be argued at Ernest Cormier’s beautiful Supreme Court building on Nov. 11 to 13.