Waiting for a good call

Well, it’s about time.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s albeit belated filling of 18 Senate seats should be welcome news to those of us who realize the potential value of that house.

Until now, the prime minister had let his urge to reform the august body get in the way of taking major actions that would eventually lead to that very end. Now, he will give his current senators more support, and will prove to long-time Tories they and their hard political works are, indeed, loved.

The NDP has long turned its back on the Senate, thereby denying a useful tool for gaining a tangible means to promote those sectors it has claimed to champion all these decades.

It’s not that I’m expecting a call in the next while. I know the open positions are going to Tories, those who have worked hard for their party. I don’t qualify under either criterion.

My view is the Senate should be a house of the accomplished Canadians - from various fields of endeavour, gender and ethnicity. Remuneration should be based on expenses and need – being as low as $1 a day for those who have their own means. Ten years seems to me to be a good term of service. And then: out.

It should be up to the provinces to say how their senators are chosen – appointed or elected, or a mix. The provinces would likely be more in tune with what would be the correct formula and means of elevation to the body. Even in the United States, where the Senate is all-powerful and the likely inspiration to Harper’s reforming visions; Senate seats still can be at least temporarily appointed. Just look at the situation with Caroline Kennedy seeking a New York seat, and the contrasting circumstances in Illinois, where the governor finds himself in a heap of trouble for allegedly offering a Senate seat for bidding.

With a purely elected body, however, all you’re doing is creating another class of professional arm-jackers out promising this and that. You wouldn’t be able to guarantee the necessary gender, sector or ethnic mix for full representation.

As I’ve said before, no one who has already served as an MP or MLA, MNA, MPP or whatever they are called should be in the Senate. They have already done their service and had their say.

A regionally equitable Senate would have relatively equal representation from Atlantic Canada, maybe including a senator or two representing the diaspora across Canada and the northeastern United States; Quebec, Southern Ontario, Northern Ontario and Manitoba, Alberta and Saskatchewan, and British Columbia and the Yukon. An equitable, effective and demographically representative Senate would actually address any concerns of exclusions or lack of voice.

All the national parties are guilty of severely abusing the Senate in one form or other. Except for his preliminary attempts at reform and finding it useful to get Montreal representation in his last cabinet, Harper ignored the Senate. The NDP has opposed it and called for its abolition, despite the concept being tailor-made to deal with many of the party’s long-time representation concerns. Of course, the Liberals shamelessly packed the body with its representatives for decades, probably doing more damage than the other two parties combined.

Harper’s move – as good as it is for the Tory faithful who’ll get a plum – also promises to be the first step in real Senate reform that will benefit all Canadians. Even those of us who don’t get the call.