grant mitchell Says YES
Former Alberta Opposition leader and Alberta senator (2005–2020)
The parliamentary system has lasted for centuries because it includes elements critical to democracies: mechanisms to build consensus, accountability processes, checks to destabilizing change and counterbalances to government overreach.
If it weren’t for our Senate, Canada wouldn’t exist. Smaller colonies were fearful of being overwhelmed in a federation dominated by Upper and Lower Canada. Linguistic minorities felt the same way. The Quebec Conference saw more debate on the Senate than any other matter. With 24 seats allocated to each of four regions, the Senate was designed to defend regional and minority rights. (The current Senate has 105 seats with six for Newfoundland/Labrador and three for the Territories.)
Today the Senate is criticized for being unelected. Aware of the implications of not being elected, senators rarely reject legislation passed by the House of Commons. An exception was their 1993 defeat of abortion legislation. The Senate does propose legislative amendments, and, especially since the Senate reforms of Justin Trudeau, many have been accepted.
Unelected senators are less driven by partisanship than the House. They generally have much longer terms than MPs and aren’t constrained by short election cycles. As a result, the Senate has settled into a role, defined by the Supreme Court in 2014, as having “complementarity” with the House.
“Sober second thought” is a defining feature of this role. Removed from partisan pressures, senators bring perspective to the review of legislation. These include: attention to the interplay between legislation and the Constitution, Charter and international agreements; legislation’s impact on regions and Indigenous, cultural and linguistic minorities; issues missed or created by legislation; and drafting errors. Senators have delayed legislation rushed through the House, to allow the public more time to become aware. They’ve delved into omnibus bills to reveal matters obscured in the House. Senators have been distinguished guardians of human rights.
“Sober first thought” also defines the Senate’s role. Because senators’ terms are longer and unconstrained by elections, they can work on issues requiring longer gestation or that are stymied by impasse in the House. Witness the work of senators Joyce Fairbairn on the Special Olympics and literacy, Michael Kirby on mental health, Sharon Carstairs on palliative care, and senators on sexual harassment in the RCMP. With longer terms, senators are a source of institutional memory.
Senate committees have studied immigration, soil, data collection, Africa, sovereignty. Such studies often provoke initiative by governments. Witnesses who have appeared before House and Senate committees say the latter are more focussed on substance and less distracted by partisan dynamics.
Canadians should see ourselves reflected in our institutions. Because senators are appointed, the Senate fills gaps in parliamentary representation: today membership is 8 per cent Black, 13 per cent Indigenous and 50 per cent female.
Our Senate, in short, has been critical to Canada’s success as a country and a democracy.
duff conacher Says NO
Co-founder of Democracy Watch
Our senate has never been meaningfully reformed, despite the first proposal in 1874 that we switch to electing senators. Canada’s Supreme Court has since ruled that substantively changing the Senate can only be done by amending our Constitution. Given this, I argue for Senate abolition.
The Senate is unelected, unaccountable, unrepresentative, secretive, unethical and undemocratic—and a waste of public money. The Senate is fundamentally undemocratic because senators are appointed. The chamber is populated by ruling-party patronage cronies who will have the job until age 75 even if they do little, which only compounds the Senate’s undemocratic nature. The charade of former PM Justin Trudeau’s Senate appointment process didn’t change anything substantive. Just like past prime ministers, he chose a group to consult in secret about which senators to appoint, then secretly chose whomever he wanted, including supporters of his party.
Appointing new senators one at a time through an actual independent process, or randomly (as happens with a citizens’ assembly), would, over the next few decades, increase Senate independence. Electing senators would eventually give the Senate the democratic legitimacy to block bills passed by the House of Commons. However, this would cause legislative gridlock, which would mean fewer societal problems would be addressed by the federal government.
The Senate is unnecessary. It’s supposed to provide balanced regional representation, but that could be achieved by adding seats to the House of Commons from the regions. Representation in the House will never match population exactly (it never has), but adding seats from the regions would ensure greater balance. Backbench MPs could also fulfill the accountability role the Senate sometimes plays if changes were made to free MPs from the control of their party leader and give them back the greater independence they historically had (and that MPs in the UK have always had).
The Senate is undemocratic and unaccountable in many other ways, with a secretive Board of Internal Economy, weak expense rules that senators enforce themselves, weak penalties for violators (except sometimes when scandals are revealed), and a lapdog Senate Ethics Officer chosen by and under the control of a committee of senators. The Senate has been failing to clean up these and other problems for almost 160 years.
In addition, senators in Canada are still required to meet the discriminatory constitutional requirements of being at least 30 years old and owning property worth at least $4,000 and other assets worth at least $4,000.
Finally, the Senate is redundant. Senators do some good studies, but they haven’t produced a report saying anything significantly different than those produced by independent think tanks, non-governmental organizations, political parties, House of Commons committees, the Library of Parliament etc. Shutting down the Senate is the easiest, least costly and best solution—much better than continuing attempts to democratize and clean up the Senate that have all failed.
Grant Mitchell responds to Duff Conacher
In a startling display of contradiction, Duff Conacher charges that it’s impossible to change the Senate because this would require constitutional reform, while proposing instead to abolish the Senate, which would also require constitutional reform. In fact, meaningful Senate reforms were introduced by prime minister Justin Trudeau to create greater Senate independence from the government, to address allegations of political patronage in appointments and to counter partisanship in the Senate:
1. Liberal senators were removed from the national Liberal caucus, where they traditionally worked directly with Liberal MPs, ministers and the PM.
2. The Independent Advisory Board (IAB) for Senate appointments was established to review applications and provide the PM with five recommendations for each vacancy. Under this system, Trudeau appointed very few senators with partisan experience.
3. The IAB is made up of three national members, supplemented by two members recommended by the governments of the provinces and territories as vacancies occur. Two of the three current national members have been senior federal public servants, deputy ministers or the equivalent, and one is a judge.
4. Trudeau appointees committed to sit as independents. Only “legacy” Conservative senators appointed before Trudeau remain in a Conservative Party-affiliated Senate caucus and in the Conservative national caucus.
The accusation that senators are “ruling-party political cronies” is factually wrong and unfair. These are people of great accomplishment, stature and respect, having contributed at the highest of levels in their careers. They are distinguished in their Indigenous communities, the public service, business, charitable work, art, culture, law, the public service, sport, education, science, research, governance and more. My (harrowing) experience as the senator responsible for rallying votes for government legislation under the reformed system was that the “new” senators demonstrate little to no loyalty to the PM, and disdain partisanship, party affiliation and politics.
Of course the IAB consults in secrecy. How else would the privacy of applicants who are passed over or who don’t want it known they’re looking for other work be respected? For the same reason, I doubt Democracy Watch deliberates hiring in public.
It is gratuitous violence to allege, without evidence, that the Senate is unethical and that the Ethics Commissioner is a lapdog. Yes, a few Senators have acted inappropriately; it is an institution of human beings. But, consistent with legislatures across the country, the ethics and conflict of interest rules in the Senate are rigorous and require annual public disclosure of financial and other interests of senators. Senators have been sanctioned under those rules. Senate ethics commissioners are hired by an open competitive process and must meet the highest of professional standards.
It doesn’t follow that the Senate is undemocratic because it’s unelected. Only the 343 members of Parliament are elected. Our democracy’s strength relies on unelected people. Judges are unelected. Unelected deputy ministers manage huge sums of money and thousands of employees, advise ministers and the PM and manage the drafting of legislation. Unelected ombudsmen, auditors general, conflict of interest commissioners and parliamentary budget officers support our democracy by holding elected and other officials accountable. It simply takes elected and unelected people of good faith to make a democracy work.
Should MPs have greater independence from their leaders? Judging by the turmoil in the UK, where MPs choose and fire leaders, this is more a recipe for continual instability than for stable democracy. Could the Senate’s regional representation be replaced by adding MPs? No. This would undermine the principle of representation by population embodied in the House.
Conacher is right when he says an elected Senate would create gridlock. But, because it is unelected, our Senate has been constrained from actions creating gridlock while still providing sober second thought and defence of regional interests and minority rights as it was designed to do.
The Senate brings unique elements to the development of public policy in ways that think tanks, NGOs and other bodies do not. Senators pursue issues neglected by MPs, who are often driven by the ever-pending next election; they hold open, public standing-committee hearings with a broad range of witnesses in their research processes; they bring institutional memory to Parliament; and they bring diverse views in a way that activist organizations cannot.
I will grant that Conacher has a point on the $4,000 and age 30 limitations being discriminatory.
To say that senators are “ruling-party cronies” is factually wrong and unfair. They disdain partisanship.
duff conacher responds to Grant Mitchell
Canada’s Senate, designed to defend regional and minority rights, may have been needed to convince smaller colonies to join Canada. But that doesn’t mean it is needed now. The Senate doesn’t defend much, as it bows to the wishes of the House of Commons almost all the time. And, given that representation in the House will never match population exactly, adding House seats from the regions would be a more effective way to ensure regional interests are defended.
A senate is also not a critical element of the parliamentary system. No provincial parliament has a senate, nor do the Scandinavian countries or New Zealand or 100 other parliaments.
While senators generally have longer terms than MPs, given they can stay unelected until age 75, that doesn’t mean all senators are less partisan. Some are, some are not, just like MPs.
It is also very questionable whether senators bring “sober second thought” to the legislative process or have been “distinguished guardians of human rights.” Sometimes they have but often they haven’t. Senators do slow down the legislative process, but sometimes not by much. For example, the Senate rushed three significant bills through in just a few days in June. In any case, a more considered legislative process could be required by simply changing the rules of the House.
Despite the past scandals of Mike Duffy and other senators, the spending rules were not strengthened and senators can still spend as much time as they want, and tens of thousands of dollars of the public’s money, on whatever they decide is “Senate business” based on whim, personal bias or otherwise. But senators having that power to be “inside lobbyists” is undemocratic (given they are appointed) and often wasteful and ineffective.
Senators or Senate committees that have undertaken an in-depth study of an issue only present one person’s or small group’s view that, in a democracy, should be given no more weight than the view of any other person or small group. Being a senator with time and resources does not mean that any senator is actually an expert in anything. In fact, senators usually consult with actual experts. Better to just let the experts do studies and produce reports, which they usually do at much less cost than senators.
MPs could also fulfill the accountability role the Senate sometimes plays if party leaders’ powers to control them were curtailed. They could then act more independently, as they used to, and as UK MPs do.
It is true that the Senate appointment process has created a more demographically representative Senate compared to the House. But everyone in the Senate has been appointed by one person, which makes them less representative at the same time. And all Senators are required to be 30 or older, so none come from the 13 per cent of Canada’s population and 20 per cent of voters who are under that age. And, again, since the Senate almost always does what the House wants, the Senate being more representative doesn’t have much effect.
Everyone in the Senate has been appointed by one person, which makes them less representative.
It would be more democratic to decrease the power of party leaders to choose election candidates, and to provide public financial support to nomination and party leadership contestants and candidates from systemically disadvantaged sectors of society. These egalitarian changes would make it much more possible for a more demographically representative group of people to run for every party in every election, which would result in a more representative House.
Grant Mitchell doesn’t propose any reforms to Canada’s Senate, as if it’s fine as is. Meaningful reforms haven’t happened since the first proposal in 1874, and they are very unlikely to happen. Former PM Justin Trudeau claimed to have established an independent, merit-based Senate appointment process, but it was a charade, as he controlled the process and appointed many Liberals. Current PM Mark Carney has abandoned the charade and is already making patronage appointments just like all past PMs.
An actually independent appointment process or electing senators would eventually give the Senate democratic legitimacy. But it would cause legislative gridlock that would hinder the federal government in dealing with societal problems.
After almost 160 years, the Senate not only continues to have all the above flaws but also a lapdog Senate Ethics Officer chosen by and under the control of a committee of senators, a weak, secretive rules-enforcement system overall and inadequate penalties for violators.
Shutting down the Senate is the easiest, least costly and best solution, and it should happen as soon as possible.
