OVER THE EDGE

November 21-December 5, 2007

17

The world upside down according to Mitch

Mircy Grant- Pooto Epiror

its Always Good to Have a Sober Second Thought

Canadian government was founded on the
Westminster model. This places trust in elites
and is based on small “c” conservatism. As
people may know, this style of government
has two parts of central government, a house
of commons (commoners elected to rule as
elites by commoners) and a senate, appointed
by the Queen or her representative in Canada,
which was originally comprised of the rich or
elite and even today I believe one can easily
qualify a hockey player as rich or elite. The
senate is able to put forward legislation for
anything but a money bill, and before legisla-
tion can be passed in parliament it must be
passed through the senate (before the com-
moners can say they want to do something the
elites must approve). The senate is not elected
but as I said appointed, and a senator can sit
for 45 years and has no commitment to ac-
tually be in the senate chambers as shown by
the senator who sat for three days then lived
in Florida for the rest of the year. The senate
is supposed to be the house of sober second
thought.

For years now, party leaders on the election
campaign have been offering lip service to
their constituents in the form of senate reform,
and yesterday (November 13, 2007) Stephen
Harper planned to reintroduce a bill to parlia-
ment asking for reformation or abolishment
of the senate. His plan for reformation is to
have the senators be elected as our members
of parliament are, and reduce the amount of
time senators are allowed to sit in the senate
to eight years. However, across the floor, Jack
Layton, leader of the New Democratic Party
is screaming for the complete abolishment of
the senate.

Having been talking to people in the past
month, I believe many Canadians have for-
gotten the primary reason for the senate, at
least as interpreted now-a-days as no longer
really being a being a branch of elite control
in the sense of a bourgeoisie elite but an elite
that can snap the reins of control on a power
hungry federal party. I believe part of this rea-
son is because we have had a minority gov-
ernment since 2004 and immediately (as in a
year or so) before this we had a government,
that while it was a majority, was rocked by
scandal and afraid to pass controversial legis-
lature for fear of the whirlwind. Does this
mean we as Canadians really only have a four
year shelf life for memory?

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It would appear so.
In a minority government, the party with the

most seats is usually asked by the Governor

General to form _
government (unless #4
stated, for the pur- Ea
pose of this article, j

when referring to
government I will
be referring to said §
party). The govern-
ment is then forced
to work together
with other parties
and their demands
and therefore un-
able to pass un-
altered legislation
based upon their
party’s agenda. If
they try to force
something through
that ties completely

to their own agenda The future of the senate is up in the air in the
that does not meet house of commons as Layton and Harper
with the approval attempt a change in Canadian political sys-

of the other federal tem.
parties, those par-

ties will quite often

vote against it. As
Canadians we are
guaranteed “peace,
order and good government” by our constitu-
tion and if the government is beaten in a vote,
they are considered to have lost the confidence
of the House, and the good government we
are guaranteed is no longer being provided.
If the government is no longer able to pro-
vide good government, then they must go to
an election. It is a common convention to be-
lieve that those in power do not wish to loose
power and so the government will often work
with the other federal parties whom have sim-
ilar interests in an attempt to pass legislation
in the interests of good government therefore,
not forcing the views of a minority on the ma-
jority of Canadian citizens.

Now that I have laid the basics of Canadian
federalism out and please note that this is just
the top fat of the Canadian political system.

If we suddenly moved off of what some aca-
demics view as trend toward minority

governments in Canada, and a majority gov-
ernment was formed after Mr. Layton and Mr.

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Harper were able to pass legislation to abolish
the senate think about the consequences to the
Canadian people by using what I examined
above. Because MPs
are “encouraged” to
vote with their party,
whomever gained
the majority gov-
ernment would be
able to pass what-
. ever legislation they
wanted as long as it
did not breach the
Charter of Rights
and Freedoms or
the Constitution
in which case they
would be respon-
sible to the Supreme
Court of Canada
to justify their rea-

soning behind said
legislation. Even
if viewed to be un-
constitutional or
against the Charter,
this majority gov-
ernment would still
have the “Not With-
standing Clause”
to fall back on and
pass the legislation
anyways.

Hmmmm. Isnt this how dictatorships and
totalitarian states are formed?

This may reek of conspiracy theory or a lit-
tle over dramatic but I call ‘em as I see ‘em.

Don’t get me wrong I don’t believe there is
some dark power in parliament reaching out
to crush the senate under its mighty fist and
erect some massive battle station above the
Earth’s surface to bring about a galactic wide
Canadian Empire but I digress.

My intention was simply to point out how
much abolishing the senate is a BAD IDEA,
which of course is just my opinion. I do not
believe that any of politicians in the Canadian
federal system currently have the moral cor-
ruption required to extend and use their power
as such; however, I do believe that the abol-
ishment of the senate could see a backward
step in the overall Canadian political and
legal system. Depending on which party was
able to gain government you could see the

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complete dissolution of the Canadian armed
forces, the reinstatement of the death penalty,
or the “economic destruction” of Caiada to
meet the Kyoto protocol or to bend #3 Amer-
ican economic needs or will. :

However I will not argue that senate reform
in and of itself is a bad idea, in-fact I believe it
is more then due time for senate reformation.
Many argue that a non-partisan elected’ sen-
ate would institute a very American move and
move us further away from the crown. T [argue
they are currently misled.

A senate elected by constituents and with no
ties to a party -perhaps with a system similar
to that of the armed forces where they are not
allowed to register, as member of any political
party within Canada- would provide Canad-
ians with both trustee and delegate represen-
tation within parliament. The party “based
system would be able to implement tegisla-
tion with freedom from the needs of their con-
stituents and with only the national picture in
mind. Meanwhile the senate would be able to
review the legislation or introduce their own,
with the people of Canada and its vast and
varying regions in mind, as their constituents
would be the only people the senators would
be responsible to. I believe this would offer
a far better balance in parliament, but once
again, that’s just me. As far as moving away
from having the Queen as our head:of state
as represented by the Governor General; just
because the GG is no longer appointing the
senate does not mean she is not required to
ask a federal party to form government (a.k.a.
doesn’t mean the Queen is still asking/giv-
ing her blessing/permission to a party to form
government) and perhaps something similar
could be adopted within a reformed senate
where she swears in each senator to do their
duty in the name of Canada and the Queen.

Many academics have argued that Canada is
moving from this trust in elites, this small “‘c”
conservative point of view, when it comes to
politics. The very Constitution and the Char-
ter of Rights and Freedoms that we have run
our justice system and political system on
for a quarter of a century now represents this
change so perhaps it is time our political sys-
tem changed to represent what it is attempting
to enforce.

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