Thursday, March 02, 2006

McGuinty Advocates Abolishing Senate

Yesterday, Dalton McGuinty took the Klein government to task over their health care proposals. Today, according to Bourque Newswatch McGuinty has advocated scrapping the Senate:
Bourque has learned that Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty has called for the abolishment of the Senate. According to a reliable source, he made the comments this evening at the Ontario Liberal's Heritage Dinner, their biggest fundraiser of the year. It remains unclear how his fellow Premiers across the nation will respond to this bold suggestion, one that goes a step further than what Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said he would do, in essence to hold elections for Senate seats as soon as possible.

I think one of the more potentially dangerous Harper proposals is the elected Senate option. The last thing Canada needs is another layer of bureaucracy that could cause political gridlock and American style pork barrel motivations. Harper seems bent on forging ahead with the elected Senate, primarily to appease western alienation. While I agree that the Senate is a flawed entity, electing Senators is a simplistic solution that has a net negative when you look past the democratic appeal.

If McGuinty is ready to lead the charge to abolish the Senate, it will provide another option which seems the most practical. The current makeup of the Senate has always been a sore spot in Canadian politics. Rather than reform the Senate, in effect replacing one bad system with another, why not just abolish and be done with it. The Senate is not a completely useless body, it does provide some valuable contributions. However, the status quo is now a symbol for a broken system and this perception is entrenched.

Abolishing the Senate eliminates the eye sore, without hampering the effectiveness of our Parliament. One of the main criticisms of Canadian federalism is the duplication of bureaucracy- how can adding another "effective" layer allow for coherent policy? The American example should serve as a concrete example of some of the pitfalls of a system with two elected bodies. Why Canada would find it necessary to voluntarily enable potential gridlock is beyond me. The best option is too simply rid the system of the irritant. I don't see an elected Senate as a democratic tool to right perceived inequalities. The practical application will lead to inefficiency, regional consideration, horse trading and perpetual debate about a body whose time has passed.

I hope McGuinty emerges as a strong advocate for abolishing the Senate. As it stands now, there doesn't appear to be any coherent opposition to Harper's plans. It is nice to see McGuinty offering forceful rebuttal and if the last few days are any indication, he is positioning himself as the "wait a minute" guy.

5 comments:

James Bowie said...

Won't happen in my life or yours.

gideon69 said...

i applaud McGinty the fact is that the senate is totally out of date. and no one really belives that it does anything so i do think that is it time to axe it

Anonymous said...

The senate
A pre retirement stable for old war horses and dunsils (useless farts). A way to appease those who don't wish to even appear as though they are working but still greedy enough to delay retiring.
The senate, a cruel joke perpetrated on the Canadian taxpayer. Right up there beside the post of Governor General. Canada is independent, free of the English yoke. So who does the current buffoon occupying the post of Governor General report to? The PMC, of course. Talk about dunsils.
I grow weary of the fat turds in power tossing taxpayers money into the fires of pomposity.
Martin was but a twig compared to the professional money hogs roaming the halls of power.
Whoosits, the current PMC said he would clean up the corruption - HA!
I see no evidence of a clean up taking place as we stand and watch his moves.
We know what the senate is, and he wishes to keep this useless stage prop for what reason?
IT SERVES NO FUNCTION!
The objective of being in charge is to take charge. Drop the cost of running government while reducing debt.
To simply stop the massive bleeding (gun registry) caused by the cancer infecting the political body is commendable but fails to eliminate the cause. Follow the money, find and charge the guilty, seek out those who internally aided and abetted. Cut slash and burn. Reduce the grand scale of faceless bureaucracy to a strict minimum with explicit directives and penalties attached.
Do your effin job as boss first, then lead.
If you can’t accomplish this simple task, Canadians still have the wrong man in power, and you force Canada to look elsewhere for true leadership.
The clocks are ticking. One counts mounting debt, the other your time in office.
Do what you need to do to get people thinking differently about politics.
Move the government away from entrenched ways of conducting business by showing everyone you mean business. Place government and operations in a bunch of trailers out in Manitoba if you have to.
Going out on a limb IS the job, and that takes real leadership.
Just the way it is

Mark Dowling said...

I like the idea of a reformed Senate which introduces list system proportional representation - either by province or nationally. This would mean that smaller parties would get some representation and there would be no excuse for not having near parity of female representation since parties could easily select lists which go MFMFMF or FMFMFM.

Steve V said...

mark

Maybe we should look to the Parliament when we discuss a measure of proportional representation.

gideon and anon

agreed.

james

I will mark you down under "slightly pessimistic" ;)