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Ben Kenobi
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McGregornobi!
Oct 2002
time: 21:36
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Tingkai:
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Ben: We need to get rid of the senate. It serves no purpose. In Canada, it is a rubber stamp. In the US, it gives too much power to the rich and distorts the basic concept of one person, one vote.
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But we are a Confederation. There is a need to balance the partnership of 10 provinces.
Secondly, why not make the Senate powerful again, rather than a rubberstamp? This is the way they planned the Senate to work way back in '67.
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The crazy Reform/Alliance/Conservatives (RAC) want a senate with seats assigned by province. That means the 140,00 people on PEI would get the same power as the 4 million people in BC. That's crazy. That's undemocratic.
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They said that about Meech Lake, and the Charlottetown Accords. Same argument. It's bull. You already have your population representation in the Commons. Now, we need increased regional representation. A proper democracy balances both demands.
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More than that, it would give the rural areas too much power. Imagine four senators for BC: one for the Lower Mainland, one for the Island, one for the North and one for the Southern Interior. The majority of BC residents would only get one senate vote (lower mainland) while the minority would get three votes. That's undemocratic.
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It would give the minority a say in addition to the majority's say in the Commons. I'm from the North. I know what it is like to feel doubly shut out. A minority in a Western province.
The Reform party founded itself on this representation, and now faces a chance of forming the government. This would be an enormous promise fulfilled, remembered all this time.
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And the battles within the region woud create massive problems for the senators. Kelowna and Penticton have different interests. Each city has its own MP, but which city would a senator represent?
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They would represent both together. That's not a hard concept. It would foster regional collaboration not found in our current system.
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It's already difficult for an MP to serve the 100,000 people who live in a riding. How effectively could a senator serve 2 million people? How effectively could a senator reflect their opinions and their needs? Not very well.
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You would be increasing the representation of the people, by giving them senators, so this argument does not wash. They would still have their Members of parliament in addition to their senators.
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Creating this Americanized senate would deprive all Canadians of a basic democratic right: one person, one vote because a US-style senate would become all powerful.
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Funny. Tiny PEI has 4 votes for 120,000 people. We do not have a system that allows for 1 person = 1 vote. Some people's votes count for more. And good luck trying to establish such a system. There will always be some variation in ridings, regardless of how you structure them.
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Conservatives say it would be a house of sober second thought, but why would the senate politicians be different than the MPs? They wouldn't be any different.
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They would counterbalance each other. Better to have more of the same, than something completely useless.
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They also say that there wouldn't be party politics in a Senate, but they never say why. To get elected to a senate would require massive resources in terms of money and manpower. Candidates would naturally join political parties to tap into these resources.
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As opposed to now, where the only way you get on the senate is through partisan patronage? At least under the new Senate, the Senators would be responsible to the people. I do not know how the political parties would adapt to this change. I do know that there are outstanding Senate vacancies, where Senators have been acclaimed by their province on the basis of their public record, and left out in the cold, because they do not bear the Liberal stripe.
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In the Canadian system, we know who to praise and who to blame. Mulroney and the PCs screwed up and got the boot. The Liberals look like they're headed the same way.
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Right. Now we just have people shifting blame from the Federal level, to the individual provinces.
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cinch
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Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Jul 2002
time: 22:36
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Originally posted by KrazyHorse So don't give me some bullshit about being disenfranchised. Alberta's made and broken governments in recent history. There hasn't been an instance of Anglo Montreal doing the same inside Quebec in the last 50 years. |
Now, if Quebec had had a provincial (sorry, national) senate, then...
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01-06-2004 11:39
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