Federal legislation introduced by the Harper Conservatives should give provinces the opportunity to elect their own senators under a set of guidelines, if passed into law.
Setting out a voluntary framework for provinces to decide if they want to elect their own senators, the Harper government is to hoping to lure with a carrot what it previously couldn’t get with a stick. Two past direct attempts to bring a measure of democracy to Canada’s appointed Senate have failed under Opposition pressure and provincial objections on constitutional grounds.
In practice, very little would change with one major exception — while Harper would still be responsible for appointing senators, he would be considering the names of nominees elected in the provinces that choose to participate in the voluntary framework.
Using this line of thinking, the Harper government is arguing no formal constitutional amendment would be required.
Medicine Hat MP LaVar Payne admitted the legislation is not a fundamental reform, but viewed it as a step in the right direction.
“I think it’s important, I’m still a triple E guy. But that of course would take a constitutional amendment. However, certainly that’s another step forward that I think we can make, in terms of the Senate at least electing them in the provinces, and then those representatives can be appointed by the prime minister. It’s still a better way to go — at least they would have the support of the residents in the provinces.”
To date, Alberta is the only province to implement a provincial Senate election model, which has resulted in the appointment of Stan Waters in 1990 and Bert Brown in 2007.
Previous attempts to introduce democracy to the Senate proposed a national electoral process with elections corresponding to provincial or federal election dates. Payne pointed the finger at one faction as being responsible for the defeat of these attempts at reform.
“The Liberal Party in the Senate,” he said has been the culprit. “We certainly have a much better opportunity now that we have a plurality in senators. We don’t have a majority, but we do have a plurality, and we also, since proroguing, we have a number of chairmen that are now Conservatives rather than Liberals, and that was as a result of the proroguing.”
So, that gives us an opportunity certainly to better manage the legislative agenda.”
Provinces that wish to participate would have to pass their own legislation, added Payne.
“Each province would have to put together some sort of legislation and approve it, and then figure out how they want to hold Senate elections and on what basis. Once they’ve got an actual bill for it in their provincial legislatures, and then they can determine how they want to do the election, and when they want to do the election. For example, Alberta has legislation, and the last time they did it I believe they did it at the same time as a civic election. So you can put it on a ballot that way.”
Payne pointed out the idea would hinge on the acceptance of the prime minister to appoint those elected by provincial ballot.
“I think what you would see is the prime minister, I would hope, would respect the will of the people. We saw that under Prime Minister Harper and under Prime Minister Mulroney, that in fact they did respect that, but under Prime Minister Chretien, he did not respect that will of the people.”
Other legislation recently introduced intends to limit appointed senators to eight-year term limits. Currently, senators could potentially serve up to 45 years, until age 75.
“I actually haven’t seen the specific legislation, but what it would do is outline provincial responsibility, and might suggest some term limits on them. I don’t think there’s anybody in our party who wants to see a senator in place for 30 years. So, I think term limits are an important aspect to this as well.
For Payne, the legislation should be viewed as a step forward, not back.
“I don’t know if I would call it a compromise. I view it as one of the steps that’s being taken to move to a triple E Senate, eventually.”