North Shore candidates from the four major parties are all promising their own brand of spit-shine when it comes to reforming Canada’s democratic institutions.
Thanks to the Mike Duffy scandal, the Senate is operating to the satisfaction of pretty much no one, and the first-past-the-post electoral system is frequently criticized as being unfair or wasting Canadians’ votes.
But, while tweaking the electoral system is relatively simple, the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled reforming the Senate (or doing away with it), would require reopening the Constitution.
Both times that’s been tried with the Meech Lake and Charlottetown accords, it failed and provoked a national unity crisis. Ontario and Quebec’s premiers have already said Senate abolition is a non-starter.
North Vancouver Liberal candidate Jonathan Wilkinson, who worked as a constitutional negotiator during the Charlottetown Accord, said his party’s compromise is to make Senate appointments of eminent Canadians based on merit and expertise, not party loyalty.
“We’re trying to put people into the Senate on the basis of a non-partisan approach where we will get that chamber to effectively be the chamber of sober second thought that it was intended to be, so that it’s not a political body,” he said.
The electoral system would also change under a Liberal government, Wilkinson said. “We have made the commitment that this will be the last election run under the first-past-the-post electoral system, which is a system that grossly distorts the preferences of voters.”
Upon being elected, the Liberals would establish an all-party parliamentary committee to review the pros and cons of alternative systems and come up with a new method, whether it be proportional representation, single transferable votes, or run-off elections.
“It behooves us to have a conversation with the other parties and with a variety of other experts to make sure we air all of these things in front of Canadians before we make a decision,” Wilkinson said.
West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country Conservative John Weston too has expertise in constitutional matters, having worked as a lawyer for the B.C. government to patriate the constitution.
Weston said he favours having a credible upper legislative body, but could not say how it ought to be reformed.
“Prime Minister Harper has done everything he could to reform the Senate and was rebuffed by the Supreme Court of Canada in a surprising manner,” he said. “He’s continuing to look for ways and I vehemently support that. We do need a reformed senate and if it can’t be reformed, Harper’s said he’s prepared to see it be abolished.”
When it comes to the electoral system, Weston supports the status quo, citing the results of the failed 2009 BC-STV referendum, which only got 39 per cent support. “I have to be governed by British Columbians in that regard and so far, I’ve seen little appetite for proportional representation,” he said, “It was a fairly hefty rejection.”
Burnaby North-Seymour NDP candidate Carol Baird Ellan’s position leaves little room for ambiguity.
“It’s been clear all along. We want Senate abolition. It’s our view it’s wrong to have an unelected, unaccountable body making laws for Canadians and we’ve seen how it’s worked over the years. It’s past its best-before date” she said.
Baird Ellan said she believes the constitutional process can be carried out without getting into provoking another crisis.
“You have to deal with the Constitution in order to abolish the Senate. There’s no question about that but as far as I’m concerned, it’s one item that needs to be dealt with and it doesn’t necessarily have to lead to a full discussion of things that will take years to deal with,” she said.
Canada’s voting system is also “badly in need of repair,” Baird Ellan said, and an NDP government would rejig Parliament so a portion of the seats will be filled on a proportional representation system.
The NDP are also promising to repeal the Unfair Elections Act.
When it comes to the Senate, the Green Party would like to hold a national referendum on the subject.
“Hopefully we end up with a referendum-type question that says ‘Do you favour the reformation proposal or abolition?’ and there will be no option for status quo,” said Claire Martin, North Vancouver Green candidate.
“Sadly” that would require a constitutional process, which Martin conceded would be a “minefield.”
Any Green MPs will make their support of a minority government conditional upon the government bringing in some form of proportional representation, Martin said.
Senator Mobina Jaffer, who hails from North Vancouver, said she welcomes the debate around senate reform, but she cautioned that changing the Senate will not be simple or easy.
“I’m also not deaf. I can hear that people are not happy with us at the moment, which is very fair. But I think we need to really look at how we want to be governed?” she said.
While scandal may have obscured its real role, the Senate still effectively reviews and improves legislation through its many committees, Jaffer said.
She has sat on 16 committees including ones dedicated to human rights, international trade, national security, terrorism, criminal law and drug policy.
