Hi chemgal,

There are no more senators in the Liberal caucus.  There are just as many Liberal senators now as there were before.

Colour me cynical.

Grace and peace to you.

John

That was one of my thoughts as well.

The Senate: A Council of National Elders: The most esteemed members of our nation.

And who decides? We!

Remember, when there was a CBC poll for the most esteemed Canadians. David Suzuki was near the top of the list, and Gordon Lightfoot, and others I don't remember offhand, but Tommy Douglas came out on top.

Some of these people, like Tommy Douglas, were politicians. But they were voted as the most esteemed Canadians not because of their political affiliations but because they were most respected by the people of Canada.

wrong rant

Sorry - back to topic. Of course I'm cynical about JT's reasons for reforming the Senate, but it's also an interesting gambit and I'm going to be watching closely for Harper's next move. 

I don't want to see the Senate abolished, since broken as it is, it's all that comes between democracy and dictatorship. Harper would love to abolish the Senate, but stacking it with his pals works pretty well too. 

I don't see how Trudeau's idea could make the slightest difference.

And, as we've seen, the Senate does not stand between us and dictatorship; it is a part of the dictatorship. In fact, the fathers of confederation wanted a senate because the big banks and railways wanted it to protect their interests against those ignorant voters.

The person who was put in place to block dictatorship was the governor-general. That last GG to try that was Baron Byng. Most historians and political scientists will say that power has been lost by precedent. I'm not sure that's true. If a precedent can destroy a position, then a precedent can restore it.

But GG's too, are usually chosen because they can be trusted to be toadies. The current one is particularly notable in that respect.

It's all about optics. Any suggestion that Trudeau is going to "reform" the Senate in any way after all the recent scandals is going to sound good. And this is politics. How it looks and what it sounds like is all that counts. Whether it makes any difference or not is of only marginal importance at best.

People have been complaining that Trudeau wasn't "doing anything" and didn't "have substance" so he's playing this card to show he can do substantial things. He's also saying he will introduce a policy to de-politicize the appointments process and that is what will really matter in the long haul. Until I see that, this is just hollow politics.

While I do feel the Senate needs a good shakeup (so does the House, to be honest, but that's a whole other issue), it will take more than this to get me behind Trudeau.

Mendalla

It seemed like a smart move to me though.  Lately, he hasn't really been in the news much.  Now he certainly is, and it appears to have pulled some support his way.  The action itself isn't something I care much about, but I respect some of the strategy behind it.

As was pointed out by some panelists I was watching last night, at the very least Trudeau is the only one of the three leaders who have proposed any concrete and achievable reform to the Senate. Harper is already at the Supreme Court asking helplessly what he can do about the Senate without having to go to the provinces. I'm pretty sure the answer will be "not much." Mulcair and the NDP have this policy of abolishing the Senate - but there's no way the basic composition of the Parliament of Canada can be changed without a constitutional amendment. So Harper will probably end up throwing his hands up on Senate reform and saying "well, I tried," and Mulcair will either do the same or get into protracted constitutional negotiations with the provinces - none of whom really agree on this issue, meaning they will be very protracted and will probably open other cans of worms. Trudeau's move may simply be meaningless optics, but he's also made a proposal which seems do-able unilaterally, and for which he could be held accountable if he doesn't do it, with no way of getting himself off the hook by saying that either the Supreme Court or the provinces wouldn't let him act. I'm not a big fan of Justin Trudeau, but I think he's made a smart political move.

The first thng to determine is what the senate is for. Then you look at ways to do it.

(and I would not be in favour of any constitutional route.)

But until you know what it's for, it's not possible to determine any way to pick who "is qualified" to pick senators.

Anyway, if a pm can change the method of choosing senators just by having a majority. Then the next pm can change it right back.

No pm would do such an unpopular thing? Harper has shown you can do it every day, and nobody will even notice.

Exactly, and I'm not sure Trudeau has done that work of defining how he sees the role of the Senate any more than his rivals.

Mendalla