A special Senate committee has recommended that western complaints of underrepresentation in the upper House be met in part by expanding the existing Senate with all new seats coming from the West.
Under the proposal, the Senate would increase from 105 seats to 117. British Columbia would double it seats to 12, Alberta would increase four seats to 10 and Manitoba and Saskatchewan each would receive an additional seat to seven.
The Senate committee proposal still would leave the West underrepresented compared to the share of the Canadian population the region holds.
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The special Senate committee studying the issue also agreed with proposals from prime minister Stephen Harper that Senate reform begin by limiting the terms of new appointees.
Within weeks, Harper also has promised to unveil plans to allow some form of election or consultation with voters on who should receive appointments.
The committee headed by Liberal Senate leader Dan Hays from Alberta and Quebec Conservative David Angus said one of the benefits of Harper’s incremental approach to Senate reform is that it is taking small steps within the competence of Parliament to do it unilaterally and will not need constitutional negotiations with the provinces to implement.
“The general appetite of Canadians for Senate reform, coupled with the complexities of a full constitutional amendment process, suggests to me that the incremental reform process initiated by the Harper government makes a lot of sense and represents a fresh new approach to necessary Senate reform,” Angus said when the report was released Oct. 26.
Hays said witnesses at the committee agreed with committee members that the country still needs an upper House of Parliament but it needs
fixing.
“The Senate is worth reforming because of its strengths,” he said.
“The Senate has served Canadians well and it can be improved to serve even better.”
However, the reforms proposed by the committee are far from approved. The full Senate must still debate the issue and it would require approval from the House of Commons, none of which might happen before the next election.
The Quebec and Ontario governments oppose the proposals because it weakens their proportional representation in the Senate.
Alberta thinks it does not go far enough and many Senate reform advocates in the province insist every province should have equal representation no matter the population, as is the case in the United States.
