A parliamentary committee plans to open public hearings soon on a government proposal to tie Senate appointments to provincial votes on favourite candidates.
Last week, a strong majority of MPs voted to send a bill to a special committee that would call for province-wide elections on potential Senate appointments before the prime minister made the choice.
Government House leader Peter Van Loan said the province-wide consultation on an appropriate Senate candidate would not obligate prime ministers to accept the choice.
However, it would be a step toward fulfilling the government promise to democratize the appointed Senate. A full switch to an elected Senate would constitutionally require approval of the Senate and provinces, which is almost impossible.
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Van Loan said requiring a provincial consultation vote is the best the government can do in the constitutional circumstances.
“The very essence of the bill is to go to the people of those provinces (where there are vacancies) and consult them every time there is a decision made on who should be appointed to the Senate,” he said during Feb. 12 debate on bill C-20.
Liberals and New Democrats criticized the proposal as an affront to provincial governments and accused the Conservatives of having a hidden agenda to abolish the Senate.
Still, they voted with the governing Conservatives Feb. 13 to send the proposal to a special committee for public hearings. Only the Bloc Québécois, in its constant defense of Quebec jurisdiction, voted against the bill because it could weaken Quebec’s constitutional powers and rights.
Van Loan noted that Senate reform has been a topic in Canadian politics through most of the country’s history and he recalled that William Lyon Mackenzie King had promised Senate reform in the 1920s.
He quoted former Progressive Conservative leader John Diefenbaker mocking King’s lack of action.
“He said he was going to substitute live Grits (Liberals) for dead Tories in the Senate,” said Diefenbaker.
“Some of those appointed were only half qualified.”
The government of Stephen Harper has been reluctant to appoint unelected Senators. There are 14 vacancies in the upper chamber and former Alberta farmer Bert Brown is one of the few Harper appointments.
Brown, who won an unofficial Alberta Senate election, is expected to go before the Commons committee to argue that Senate elections would add legitimacy to an upper chamber that now has little public support.
