School visits are one of my great joys. I love popping into classrooms to explain the history, evolution and modern role of the Senate of Canada. Whether I’m talking to students in Grade 3, Grade 9 or Poli Sci 200, I generally take a moment to explain the distribution of our 105 Senate seats.
When Canada was formed in 1867, I tell classes, it was made up of four provinces: Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. The two smaller provinces were worried that they’d be bullied by the bigger Ontario and Quebec. So the Senate was created in part as a compromise to convince the two little provinces to get together with the two big ones. Ontario was given 24 seats in the Senate and Quebec received 24. New Brunswick and Nova Scotia each got 12 seats.
(At this point I say, “And 12 plus 12 equals…?” Grade 5 and 6 students shout out the answer. Grade 11 and 12 students are more inclined to roll their eyes.)
Then, I go on, when little Prince Edward Island joined Confederation in 1873, it wanted senators too. So New Brunswick and Nova Scotia each gave up two Senate seats to their neighbour, giving PEI four and leaving the two other Maritime provinces with 10 each—maintaining that 24/24/24 balance.
Alberta, with 4.7 million people, has six Senate seats−while New Brunswick, population 787,000, has 10.
Thus the Senate was given special responsibility to represent the issues of regions, to ensure that Ontario and Quebec controlled neither politics nor public policy.
As the four western provinces gradually entered the federation, we kept true to that base 24 system. British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba each got six senators.
“Because six times four equals….?”
If you’re keeping up with the Grade 6 students, you’ll realize 24+24+24+24 does not equal 105. We subsequently added six senators for Newfoundland and one each for Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut. But otherwise we’ve stayed wedded to the 24-seat model.
In 1901 Alberta’s population was just over 73,000, while Nova Scotia’s was almost 460,000. So it made sense for us to have fewer senators. In fact, back in 1905, giving Alberta six senators was positively generous, since we had by far the smallest population of any province. We were given the gift of six Senate seats so that Alberta’s interests, as the province with the fewest people, would still be represented in the Upper House.
Today, BC and Alberta are Canada’s third and fourth most populous provinces. And we still have six seats each. (Assuming they’re filled. At the time of writing BC has one vacant seat and Alberta, two. In fact, it’s been three years since Alberta has had a full complement of six senators.) How does it make sense for Alberta, with 4.7 million people, to have six Senate seats, while New Brunswick, with a population of 787,000, has 10? How can BC, with 5.4 million people, have the same number of senators as Newfoundland, which has a population of 533,000?
For that matter—while I’m busy poking bears—how does it make sense for Ontario, with its population of 14.5 million, to have the same number of Senate seats as Quebec, with its population of 8.8 million?
It doesn’t. But most “solutions” to fix the problem don’t make sense either. Years ago, Preston Manning campaigned for a Triple-E Senate—Equal, Elected and Effective—with equal representation for each province. That’s how the US Senate works: 100 seats, two for each state, giving California, New York and Texas the same number as Wyoming, Vermont and North Dakota. This torques public policy and representative democracy in ways we surely don’t wish to emulate. It’s telling that when Stephen Harper was prime minister, he completely dropped the notion of an equal Senate.
On the other hand, a Senate that mirrored the House of Commons, with seats based on representation by population, would undermine the Senate’s historic role as a guardian and defender of regional interests and smaller provinces, and its identity as a complementary chamber.
Of course, any initiative to reduce the number of seats for Atlantic provinces or Quebec would be political kryptonite for any prime minister. Adding more seats for Alberta and BC might be marginally more palatable—even if it amounts to the same thing—but not, perhaps, to Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
It is, in short, a mess. A mess most are scared to tackle or acknowledge. But we can’t keep ignoring it. Not now that a reformed Senate, where all Senators except for 15 Conservatives sit as independents, is playing a more public and more muscular role in policy formation, amending more bills and seeing more of its amendments accepted. Successful Senate reforms have made the independent Senate more effective—to use Manning’s terminology. As students head back to classrooms, and Senators head back to the Red Chamber, maybe we need to start asking some hard fresh questions about the impacts of those regional imbalances encased in constitutional amber.
Paula Simons is an independent senator and the host of the podcast Alberta Unbound. She lives in Edmonton.
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