Confusion Say: A mind is a terrible thing to waste on Politics

Originally published in the Independent

When Opposition Leader, Yvonne Jones, asked the Premier to support the election of senators this week I thought the request reasonable enough – if you ignore the fact that the PM still has the power to appoint (or not) anyone “pushed” forward by the voters.

Confusion hit me hard however when Premier Dunderdale refused to even entertain the idea.

I immediately began to wonder why, when her new BFF – Best Falls Friend – has been promoting that approach for years. What’s going on, I asked of nobody in particular. Isn’t the Premier seated firmly on the PM’s bandwagon, at least until the bank clears our paperwork on the Lower Churchill loan?

When I’m confused like this (it happens a lot) I tend to explore the offending situation in an often futile attempt to understand the unfathomable.

This time every fiber of my being began screaming that it’s far better to choose a representative than have one foisted upon you, especially by someone who may not have your best interests at heart. (Just Google Fabian Manning) Unfortunately that pail doesn’t hold water since it’s based in large part on the concept that the Senate represents us when it actually doesn’t.

As things stand, the Senate is a well funded dumping ground for party hacks, fundraisers and failed MPs. It has no power and doesn’t provide even token representation to the people of Canada. To put it bluntly, it’s a taxpayer funded pig’s trough filled to capacity with honey golden slop. Oh yeah, and Senators sometimes comment on legislation even though they can’t do anything about it.

There are those who advocate abolishing the Senate entirely, tearing the Senate wing off the Parliament building and salting the earth so nothing ever grows there again. As exciting as that would be to watch on the evening news, or even on the pre-evening-evening news, I’ve decided not to back that horse.

I came to this decision when, in a mad grab to make sense of the situation, I asked myself, wouldn’t abolishing the Senate leave the House of Commons (those elected bottom feeders we send to Ottawa every so often) without the slightest official oversight, not even at a symbolic level?

The answer immediately came back to me as a tepid, “maybe”.

NO! I shouted rather loudly into my empty living room. The solution must be reform not abolition!

This epiphany was immediately followed by the embarrassing realization that I was alone and acting like an idiot. As I took some time to let my red cheeks cool, my mind drifted from the subject at hand for a fleeting moment. Then, as the trees cleared, I began to see the forest once again and sadly another thought came to me.

Reform will never happen.

For the uninitiated into the dark art of politics, let me explain why.

The three keys to senate reform are often referred to as triple E – Equal, Effective and Elected.

The elected part, at least the semblance of it, is what Ms. Jones was prattling on about this week. Unfortunately electing Senators at this time make no sense at all when you look at it with cold detachment.

You see true Senate reform would require those three E’s to happen in a clearly defined sequence. You can’t simply fling them into place by choosing the easy ones first.

If the Senate is to serve anyone, other than those lucky enough to sit there, certain steps need to be followed.

First comes equality, and by this I mean allotting an equal number of seats (or votes if that makes things simpler) to each Province or Territory.

The House of Commons is elected based on population with larger provinces sitting more MPs than smaller ones, representation by population as it were. A truly equal senate would serve to balance the Commons by providing regional representation. In an equal senate each province would have the same voice regardless of population. Sadly it’s a concept places like Ontario and Quebec, with massive political clout in Ottawa, will never accept (strike one).

Until true equality exists it would be catastrophic to smaller provinces if the Senate were to actually become effective.

Effectiveness is accomplished by providing the Senate with real power including the ability to modify or kill bills and perhaps even control aspects of legislative implementation.

Consider the anguish it would bring if “Effective” came before “Equal” leaving the majority of sitting senators coming from the same province’s already wielding the lion’s share of power in the Commons.

As you can see, timing is everything.

But fear not, to enact an effective Senate would require the House of Commons, or more specifically the sitting government, to give up some of its own power, like that’s ever going to happen (strike two).

…This is where I pause for a second and ask readers to use the word “fizzle” in their comments, should they feel the need to respond online. That way I can tell if you read the entire expanse of this article or just skimmed it and went off half cocked, in which case I won’t feel as bad about ignoring you by not responding.

Now back to the issues at hand…

Finally we place the cart back behind the horse with the elected piece of the puzzle.

The reason why this one is last on the list, not first, is because there’s no point in provincial taxpayers footing the bill for senate elections just so we can pick someone to spend our tax dollars while having no power other than to attend photo ops when an elected MP can’t be bothered to show up.

In addition, in order for any election to be truly valid (not just if the PM agrees to appoint someone the province supports) it would require setting term limits and creating legislated elections on the federal level. In other words the Senate and the governments who reward their faithful by sending them to the Red Chamber would have to be willing to stop the feeding frenzy for the sake of the greater good.

Ah…and it would also require opening the constitution and getting the Province’s to all agree. Good luck with that.

(Feel free to choose either of the last two points as your personal strike three).

So, the answer to Ms. Jones question, at least from my muddled perspective, is as follows:

There’s no point spending a fortune on fake elections in the hope the PM will appoint our chosen one, who will then be free to decide in a few years if he or she is willing to turn their back on a utopia where they have no responsibility and where money and perks flow faster than the mighty Churchill.

Get all that?

Hell, we’d be better off handing the price of a senate election over to some perk loving party hack (to be decided on by the perk giving government of the day) if he or she agrees to decline a senate seat and the PM will agree to leave that seat vacant.

At least empty seats don’t cost the taxpayers of Canada (of which we are also charter members) a king’s ransom.

In other words, after all my hand wringing and hair pulling I’ve come to the conclusion that we should not abolish the senate but instead reform it… but… since we can never actually reform it we should starve it to death.

A quick death is too good for that place. We need to make it suffer a long lingering demise.

Who knows, perhaps the same internal struggle was going on inside the Premier’s head when she refused to entertain the idea of senate elections this week. Then again, maybe her political instincts told her she simply couldn’t explain it well enough in the confines of a 20 second news clip, or maybe, just maybe, her name is already on some secret senate appointments list and she doesn’t want throw a monkey wrench into her retirement plans.

I don’t know and I don’t really care. Whatever the reasoning, the end result is the same. No elections.

Now my head hurts and I’m going to go lie down…is that burnt toast I smell?

Harper Breaks Promise – Rewards Political Cronies

Once again Stephen Harper is about to thumb his nose at the people of Canada.

This time around he’s doing it by casting aside any pretext of senate reform and instead appointing 18 conservative senators to the red chamber.

Not only is this move another example of the sort of two faced politics the Prime Minister is already known for (in Newfoundland and Labrador anyway where he didn't win a single seat last time out), but it’s also a flagrant example of his utter disregard for the will of Parliament itself.

When the Governor General conspired with Mr. Harper to suspend Parliament last week she allowed him to run and hide from a non-confidence vote. That was bad enough but she also left him with no restrictions on his powers even though she has the authority to do so, in the same way as she would if an election campaign were underway.

This has left the Prime Minister with the ability to do as he pleases and to rule Canada as he sees fit even though at the time Parliament was suspended every single opposition MP expressed their loss of confidence in his leadership, down to the person.

As a result 18 of the PM's conservative cronies will be getting a Christmas present consisting of a seat in the senate. A position that includes a hefty salary, a menu of expensive perks, very little work and a position that is considered the ultimate prize in federal circles.

There may be nothing unconstitutional or illegal about what the Prime Minister is doing but it is certainly immoral and deceitful for a lame duck Prime Minister to do this after being elected on a promise of not appointing senators and considering that he would already have been removed from office had he not locked the doors of Parliament to avoid losing power.

Personally I couldn’t care less if the PM fills every seat in the Senate with cigar smoking chimpanzees. What I find most distasteful is Mr. Harper's total lack of moral authority for doing what he is about to do, the fact that he lied about not making these appointments during two election campaigns and most of all, the distinct likelihood that since one Newfoundland and Labrador senate seat is open he will appoint one of biggest sellouts to the people of province, Loyola Hearn or Fabian Manning, to what amounts to the biggest taxpayer funded payoff in the Country.

Come to think of it I do care if the Prime Minister loads up the Senate with cigar smoking chimps. I believe I’d prefer that option.

Reform and the Common Man

The nineteenth century novelist, poet and politician, Lord Edward Lytton, once said that “reform is a correction of abuses and revolution is a transfer of power”.

After decades of colonization, first by England and now by Canada, and make no mistake but that Newfoundland and Labrador is little more than a colony in Canada, the question lingers whether the sort of revolution or reformation needed to ensure the secret nation’s survival might ever come to pass.

The possibility of the one may exist, for the other it may already be too late.

The truth is that revolutions require fiery revolutionaries to lead them and the exuberance of youth to feed them. After decades of governmental softening and quiet appeasement the quickly aging population left rattling around Newfoundland and Labrador would make for a sad revolutionary movement indeed.

In this instance, the more pertinent question ought to be if the seeds of reform, rather than revolution, can be nourished and brought into the life giving light of day.

After decades of being the “odd man out” in confederation, after having their wealth of resources, both natural and human, siphoned off to feed the Canadian economic engine and after being reminded for decades to mind their place, will Newfoundlanders and Labradorians ever take a stand and make a change?

Why is such change needed some may ask. The “province” is finally turning a corner. Its economy is beginning to grow and the tide of out-migration is about to turn. Good times are just around the corner.

Are they? Has anything really changed other than the size of government coffers?

Is Newfoundland and Labrador now truly an equal partner in Confederation or have the yardsticks simply shifted economically?

Rather than citing the countless, and often discussed disparities, wrong doings and cultural atrocities that have been, and continue to be, perpetrated on the people of Newfoundland and Labrador perhaps the best testament to the reasons why such “revolutionary reforms” are needed can be found in the words of two well known historical figures.

The first is Nobel Prize winner (for Science) and author, Alexis Carrel, who wrote:

"The first duty of society is to give each of its members the possibility of fulfilling his destiny. When it becomes incapable of performing this duty it must be transformed."

And Abraham Lincoln who said, “If by the mere force of numbers a majority should deprive a minority of any clearly written constitutional right, it might, in a moral point of view, justify revolution”.

I’ll leave it to others to determine if those critera have been met or if enough spirit, vitality and fire remains in the people of Newfoundland and Labrador to respond should it be so.

Senate Abolition VS. Senate Reform

This week NDP Leader Jack Layton publicly called for a referendum on abolishing the Canadian Senate. Not surprisingly it’s a move that seems to be getting some support from inside the Conservative government.

Calling the upper chamber "outdated and obsolete”, with “…no place in a modern democracy in the 21st century," Layton put out the call for a referendum on the issue.

Layton’s words have some glimmer of truth in them but fixing the problem by throwing the baby out with the bath water seems a bit extreme to say the least.

For years Canadians have come to accept the fact that the Senate is little more than a vestige of a bygone era. A rubber stamp factory for federal legislation and essentially a golden retirement plan for former MPs and party faithful. But is that any reason to abolish it?

Shouldn’t the question revolve around reforming the chamber and making it work rather than doing away with it completely? It’s not like everything in Ottawa would suddenly function better and the sun would rise earlier in the morning if the Senate didn’t exist. When it comes to government dysfunction there’s more than enough blame to go around.

When Harper was elected a couple of years ago a major plank in his platform was Senate reform, not senate destruction. Many people have called for a triple E senate for years (elected, equal and effective). That’s a far cry from abolition. If full senate reform was put in place not only would the problem of a useless Senate go away but the government itself would more effectively meet the needs of all Canadians, not just those in the Ottawa/Quebec corridor.

From the perspective of smaller provinces like Newfoundland and Labrador a triple E senate might solve some of the problems inherent in finding any kind of a voice in Ottawa. Doing away with it would only serve to further strengthen the position of larger provinces by silencing the smaller ones completely.

Elected: An elected Senate (with set terms) means senators would need to go back to the people of their province or territory for a renewed mandate on a regular basis.

This would ensure that they do their job while in Ottawa (reviewing and providing sober second thought to legislation) rather than simply showing up in the chamber when it suits them, as many do now.

Anyone who has seen the kind of flawed legislation coming out of Ottawa on a regular basis lately would be hard pressed to disagree with the need for sober or any other kind of second thought.

Effective: An effective senate means different things to different people, but for me it represents a senate that is non-partisan. A Senate made up of independent members elected by the people of their province or territory without the benefit or liability of party affiliation.

Such a Senate would take party partisanship out of the equation and allow senators to truly represent their constituents, a situation sorely lacking in the House of Commons.

An effective Senate would also be one that is given the power and mandate to amend or even kill legislation if the need is there to do so.

Equal: An equal senate would provide something missing in Canadian politics today, an equal voice for all of the provinces and territories.

A newly designed senate with 5 or 10 representatives from each province or territory, each with a single vote, would ensure that no one region, regardless of population or number of parliament seats, is capable of hijacking the federal agenda for their own benefit.

No doubt there are those who believe this sort of power in the Senate would hamstring legislation and never allow anything to get done. I refuse to buy that argument. A majority of votes in the senate would be achievable as long as the majority of provincial/territorial representatives are in favor of the legislation. This is a far cry from the current system that allows passage of whatever serves to buy the most votes in the larger provinces.

With so few voices in Ottawa, can the smaller regions afford to give up even the largely ineffective ones they have in the Senate today and leave themselves fully at the mercy of MPs from Ontario, Quebec and Alberta?

No matter what the result of a federal referendum, abolition of the Senate requires a constitutional change and the support of the provinces, something that isn’t likely to happen. We’ve all seen how well the provinces agree on even the smallest of matters, but fear not, a referendum, or even talk of one, is not a wasted effort.

There is a silver lining in all of this even if full abolition is unlikely to ever happen.

With a referendum being discussed, and potentially in the offing, the topic of senate reform has suddenly moved from the back burner to the front burner for many Canadians. This may provide an opportunity to begin the process of airing public concerns and potentially moving from an unelected, unequal and ineffective chamber toward the type of elected, equal and effective one that would be the most beneficial for everyone involved.