[RCO]

( iggy comes out with a few pathetic ideas and suddenly in the eyes of the media he wants senate reform , what a farce . and think what americans would think if a politician there suggested commissions instead of voters should be selecting senators , i also added a poll to get your thoughs on who should be selecting senators in the future )

Ignatieff wants Senate reform

By ELIZABETH THOMPSON, QMI Agency



Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff gestures as he answers a question from the media on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Thursday, Jan. 28, 2010. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Pawel Dwulit

OTTAWA — Canada’s Senate should be reformed to impose 12-year term limits and curb the prime minister’s power to unilaterally choose senators, says Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff.

While Prime Minister Stephen Harper has talked about the reforming the senate, the only thing he has achieved is to pack it with his own Conservative supporters, Ignatieff added.

“Do we need to reform it? I think so,” Ignatieff told CTV’s Question Period Sunday, only two days after Harper announced five more appointments, which will give him control of the upper house.

“Do we need term limits? A 12-year term limit, I would support that.”

Currently, once named, senators can serve until they turn 75 years old, although many of those appointed by Harper have agreed to non-binding caps on their terms.

While he doesn’t question the Senate itself, pointing out that MPs aren’t perfect and the Senate often catches mistakes in legislation, Ignatieff called into question the system by which senators are currently chosen.


“I’d even go so far as to limit the prime minister’s prerogative to appoint senators ... I would pass it through a public service appointment commission so we scrub it and get the best possible appointees.”

At the same time, however, Ignatieff said job creation — not Senate reform — is the priority for “hard pressed middle-class Canadians.”

Ignatieff also called on the Harper government to abandon its policy of waiting for the U.S. to come up with a plan to fight climate change, saying if Canada waits for the Americans “nothing is going to happen.”

“Mr. Obama’s difficulties, the fact that he lost the seat in Massachussetts, I think make it much more unlikely that the American government is going to come up with a climate change plan of its own.”


http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Po.....1-qmi.html

[Bugs]

Iggy once again shows that world that he just doesn't get the democracy thing.

The problem with the Senate is not that the Senators are appointed by the PMs. The bigger problem, by far, is that they are appointed at all.

In the modern world (the one that developed after the Russian Revolution) people pretty-much need to be elected to have legitimacy. Sorry about that. Iggy, himself the occupant of one of the rotten boroughs of the Liberal Party, might not be familiar with the concept.

Even at that, our Senators are appointed by the wrong people. They should be appointed by some authority at the provincial level. They are supposed to be, after all, representing provincial interests.

Now that the Progressive Conservatives have passed from the scene, perhaps we could revisit Sir John A. Macdonald's decision to subvert the Constitution, and have a choir of castratos serve in the Senate, forever. (I know that anyone who thinks proroguing Parliament is throttling Democracy will be more than just casually interested in that question.)

[Cool Blue]

Funny how electing senators who are then appointed by the PM is unconstitutional but having them picked by bureaucrats and then appointed by the PM is a-ok...

[cosmostein]

[RCO]

Majority backs Senate reform, poll finds

A worker cleans the speaker's chair in the Senate chamber in preparation for the return of Parliament on Nov. 17, 2008. Reuters
Nearly 60 per cent of those surveyed would rather see senators elected than Red Chamber abolished

Recommend | 9 Times
See also:
•With Senate in his grip, PM drives crime agenda
•Reality check: Did Liberals obstruct agenda?
•Biographies: Who are the new Tory senators?
. Article Comments (233) Ottawa — The Canadian Press
Published on Monday, Feb. 08, 2010 4:50PM EST

Last updated on Monday, Feb. 08, 2010 5:15PM EST


.A new poll suggests Canadians would much rather reform the unelected Senate than abolish it or keep it as it is.

The Harris-Decima survey conducted for The Canadian Press indicates 59 per cent of respondents believed senators should be elected.

By contrast, only 27 per cent thought the Senate should be abolished and a mere 10 per cent wanted the prime minister to continue appointing senators.

The telephone survey of just over 1,000 Canadians was conducted Jan. 28 to 31, just as Prime Minister Stephen Harper was appointing five more partisans to the Senate – finally giving the Conservatives the numerical upper hand in the red chamber.

A survey this size is considered accurate within 3.1 percentage points 19 times in 20.

Mr. Harper has indicated that he will use his party's new-found Senate dominance to revive legislation that would impose term limits on senators and create a process to elect them.


http://www.theglobeandmail.com.....le1460516/

[cosmostein]

[Bugs]

I think the Senate is a potentially important institution, which, like in the US, brokers off regional differences. If we'd had a legitimate Senate, for example, all the stuff that was taking place between the provincial political barons about Quebec, in those God-awful Federal-Provincial Conferences ... would have been Senate business.

Instead of the delegations of governments making deals behind the curtain of secrecy, responsible only to their various cabinets, you would have had elected representatives of the people, making their deals in public, and would be responsible, when they return, to the people who elected them.

It was a great violation of anything democratic in this country. The provinces all bargained for jobs and promotions, and their piece of a bigger state -- not what the people would have put on the agenda.

If we developed a senate around the recognition that the major economic regions of the country should have roughly equal membership, then we'd have an institutional protection from elite phenomenon such as Quebec separatism.

[kwlafayette]

As long as the PM gets to appoint the commissions, and gets to submit a binding list of acceptable choices, I am sure that it is a good idea.

[Dana]

My choice is not up there.
Each Province appoints Senators, confirmed by a free vote in their Legislature. Also an opportunity to distribute representation more fairly, by population, with minimums for the smaller Provinces and Territories, and to limit terms.

Recent history shows that moving from appointed representatives to elected representatives can weaken the regional government overall and strengthen the central government. I speak of the change in the US system, from Senatorial appointments made from each State Legislature, to elected Senators. The Senators no longer had to answer to their individual states, and became far more Federal in their orientation.

In our system, the PM exerts yet more central influence in the appointment of Senators,with only a nod to the regions concerns. And only Alberta has got off its duff and actually elected Senators.

If the goal is to provide a sober second look, what better way than to give Provincial Legislatures the sole power to appoint Federal Senators. The vote of each MLA exists as the result of winning their riding, who is better qualified than them to send the people expected to provide a sober second look at what laws the Feds are creating?

[hatrock]

[Bugs]

This is an excellent point.

[FF_Canuck]