The federal New Democratic Party is trying to cash in on the current Senate expenses controversy by launching a national campaign to abolish the appointed upper chamber.
NDP leader Thomas Mulcair said yesterday the party will start a “conversation” with Canadians on the need to abolish the Senate.
The party has set up a website to attract Canadian outrage.
And he confidently predicted the outcome of the “conversation” by assuring reporters on Parliament Hill that if the opposition NDP becomes government in October 2015, it will introduce legislation to abolish the Senate.
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When asked about the constitutional requirement that both provinces and the federal government must approve changes in the existence of the Senate, Mulcair said he will talk to the provinces looking for support and will launch an advertising campaign.
Traditionally, many provinces have opposed abolition because the Senate is based on regional representation that gives smaller provinces more clout than their populations would warrant.
Mulcair indicated he will talk to the converted on the issue.
“We’re here today to start rolling up the red carpet to the Senate,” he said after the weekly NDP caucus meeting.
Mulcair said Senate abolition has been an NDP principle for 50 years.
The Conservatives, from their Reform roots, were elected vowing to reform the Senate by requiring limited terms for senators and Senate elections.
Some provinces have threatened a legal challenge to any reform proposals so the government has referred the question of Senate reform, including the legality of a federal decision to abolish it, to the Supreme Court.
Prime minister Stephen Harper, now embroiled in a Senate scandal around inappropriate expenses claimed by some Conservative senators, took office in 2006 vowing to not make Senate appointments.
He soon realized that vow would leave the Liberals in charge of the Senate as seats became vacant.
He started to appoint senators soon after and now has appointed a record 59 senators to the 104-seat chamber.
All have pledged to support Senate reform and fixed terms.
Lately, Harper appointee and former journalist Mike Duffy has become the symbol of Harper Senate troubles when it was discovered by an auditor that while he claimed a Prince Edward Island cottage as his primary residence and claimed more than $90,000 in expenses to live in Ottawa, in fact his Ottawa home has been his principal residence for years.
Duffy was ordered to pay the money back, and Harper’s chief of staff Nigel Wright secretly gave him $90,000 to pay off the debt. Duffy had insinuated it was his money that paid the debt.
Wright has since resigned under allegations that a gift to a senator may be illegal.
Saskatchewan senator Pamela Wallin from Wadena also is under investigation for claims of more than $350,000 in travel expenses in recent years. Auditors and the Senate have yet to rule on her case but she has resigned from the Conservative caucus while the investigation continues.
