A senate chair should be occupied by someone with a democratic mandate, and Canadians should be able to mark their ballot for their Senator, as well as for their MP. We need a ballot with senators' names, and seats with senators that have been elected. Under a Conservative government, Canadians will choose who sits in this chair. In the 21st century, those who want to sit in the parliament of a democratic state should have a mandate from the people.The Prime Minister currently holds a virtually free hand in the selection of Senators. As Prime Minister I will use that power to establish a federal process for electing senators. Probably the same guy who said this:
Lets be clear: Harper has the perfect right to stuff the Senate with cronies. Its the Canadian way. One might even argue that the integrity of the institution demands these appointments be made.
However, they are most accurately viewed as signalling the inevitable process by which a political party or movement sheds its Idealism in the face of hard reality. Where once the CPoC could argue that there was a clear moral distinction between them and the Liberals, now they can merely argue that there is a barely perceptible moral distinction between them and the Liberals. In three months, they will be arguing that their latest scandal isn't as bad as Adscam was. In six months...well, everybody count the spoons on Parliament Hill.
(PS. I'm hoping Harper does what so many people have tried to do for so many years-- get Puffy off the air-waves. For one thing, that would literalize the "stuffing" metaphor. Would they be forced to give him two Senate seats, a la the major airlines?)
H/t Ted.
Do you think voters really HONESTLY give a rat's ass whether he appoints 18 people to the Senate? Particularly when there's already, gasp, 50 Liberal senators there versus 20 Tory ones?
ReplyDeleteFrom: we're more honest than they, to nobody will notice if we're dishonest too.
ReplyDeleteIts like a 7 stage process.
I love that line of defence, Neil.
ReplyDeleteIf Canadians won't notice, we don't have to care about keeping promises and sticking to principles.
I do, however, seem to recall that Canadians cared a very great deal when Trudeau did it in 1984 and very very much when Mulroney did it in 1990.
Having said that, if Harper's government goes the way those governments did after their patronage bonanzas, maybe this is a great idea!
Ted - you're on crack.
ReplyDeleteCanadians HATED Muldoon for stacking the Senate because he was forcing the GST down our collective throats.
In 1984 John Turner stacked the Senate because Pierre Trudeau (who basically everyone hated) asked him to. These appointments were blatant patronage plums.
Harper has no unpopular tax that he is ramming down our collective throat and he is going to appoint because anyone with half a brain knows that a thirty seat majority in the Senate is what's that word the coalition has been throwing around for the last week? Oh yeah, "undemocratic."
I bet Neil has a double-wide.
ReplyDeleteI concede to Neil that Harper's patronage extravaganza is more like Trudeau's than Mulroney's.
ReplyDeleteMulroney stuffed the senate to get around it.
Trudeau and Harper stuffed the senate with cronies in the dying days of their respective governments.
For almost three years, Harper stood on principle and refused to break his promise not to appoint unelected senators. Suddenly, when faced with a real opposition and the real chance he might lose a non-confidence vote, what does he do? Cancels Parliament and then appoints a record number of partisan cronies all on in one go.
Interestingly, Martin appointed 17 senators over the course of his tenure: 4 were Conservatives (including Hugh Segal who has been one of the most effective weapons for Harper) and 1 was a Dipper. Anyone want to guess how many non-Conservatives Harper will nominate out his 18?
>>Harper stuffed the senate with cronies in the dying days of their respective governments. <<
ReplyDeleteAre you quite certain his government is in its dying days because I'm pretty sure he won the PR war last week. He will win an election, too, despite the fact that he is a HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE asshole because unlike Ignatieff, his signature isn't alongside a party who wants Canada t breakup in a coalition government agreement.
Harper may be the biggest asshole in the history of Canadian politics, but I think voters would take him over a guy who lived outside of Canada for thirty years and who is totally down with governing the country at the whim of a separatist party.
Neil, even the National Post thinks that, while Harper should have appointed these senators before now, to do so now is not good and has questionable legitimacy. In its editorial today:
ReplyDelete"If the Prime Minister does not think he can survive the January showdown, appointing new Senators is an unfair extraction of partisan advantage from the breathing space he was granted by the Governor-General last week."
And people are already tiring of this invention that the Liberals and the NDP want to break up the country. The hyperbole was effective in the chaos of last week of polarizing Canadians in the right direction for Harper, but as we settle down people are realizing that, as bad as they think a coalition is, it is not a coup, it is not anti-democratic, it would not be the end of Canada and maybe, with the right leader in charge, it might not even be a bad thing if... as Ignatieff has proposed, Harper continues to show he does not give a crap about Canadians in his next budget.
But seriously, someone who cancels Parliament early in the spring, avoids Parliament in the fall with an promise breaking election, cancels opposition days, cancels Parliament, prevents Parliament from sitting for over half a year, uses this time out to ram through a record-breaking number of senators and other appointments... someone like that and someone who supports that has no business calling anyone else un-democratic.
And yet, he is sitting at... what... 47% in the polls?
ReplyDeleteWe're up to 47% now, are we?
ReplyDeleteWhy so tentative? Why not go for 53%?
Wuss.