In many ways, this will be the summer of the Senate.
Rarely in recent Canadian history has the Upper House, the Chamber of Sober Second Thought, the Repository of Political Warhorses and Fund Raisers, been so much on the political radar.
Since the Reform-inspired Conservative party took power in 2006, Senate reform has been an expectation despite prime minister Stephen Harper’s orgy of unprecedented Senate appointments.
He says they all will support Senate reform.
The scandal over expenses surrounding several Conservative senators (it must be pointed out all of whom were appointed by Harper) and one Liberal has of course turned the simmering Senate reform issued into a slow boil.
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Some Conservative MPs are talking about abolition.
So last week, Senate Conservatives led by speaker Noel Kinsella launched what might be called not a charm offensive but a “relevance” offensive.
He called on fellow senators to use their summer back home (for those who do not live in Ottawa and claim somewhere else as home) to promote the value of the Senate as a bulwark against government power, a key instrument of Confederation “which keeps Canada strong and free.”
Kinsella suggested the very future of the Senate is at stake.
“Let us engage our compatriots on the critical role of the Senate in the practice of Canadian freedom and liberty,” he said in an extraordinary speech in the Senate.
Meanwhile, the New Democratic Party vows to spend the summer convincing Canadians that the Senate is a relic of the past, an expensive undemocratic holding tank for old Liberal and Conservative hacks that can obstruct democracy.
The Liberals seem to think it is fine as it is: 104 appointed senators with no accountability that gives Quebec disproportionate clout in Canadian politics. Presumably, the Liberals expect to regain power in the near term and the Senate will be a good holding tank for their own long-in-the-tooth grandees.
So during the political hiatus that happens when Parliament is adjourned for the summer, the Senate issue might actually have some legs for the first time in decades.
Even the Supreme Court is expected to weigh in this autumn in a judgment on a reference from the federal Conservative government about how far it can go unilaterally in reforming the Senate with fixed appointment terms and voluntary provincial elections.
Memo to Senate reform/abolition advocates: forget about it.
The chance that the Supreme Court will decide that the 1867 Confederation bargain, which included federal-provincial agreement on the Senate, can be abrogated is close to nil.
The Senate was created in part to give representation to provinces despite changing democratic dynamics in the popularly elected House of Commons.
A Supreme Court decision that Ottawa can act as it pleases is not plausible.
Meanwhile, the NDP campaign to abolish the Senate ignores a crucial point: ineffective as it sometimes is, the Senate is one of the few restraints on a majority government that Canada’s strict party discipline turns essentially into a four year dictatorship.
