Canada's Senate

In the previous section, I mostly discussed Canada's House of Commons and its rules of operation. Though the House of Commons is the most important part of Canada's Parliament, there is also a second branch, known as the Senate. After the House of Commons passes a bill, it must also pass a vote in the Senate before it becomes law.

The Canadian Senate is very controversial. It is based on the British House of Lords, and is an un-elected body. Senators are unilaterally appointed by the Prime Minister, but he cannot fire them. They serve until their death, resignation, or 75th birthday. Until recently, they served for life.

Representation in the Senate is not equal. Ontario has 24 senators, while Prince Edward Island has four. The tiny province of New Brunswick has 10, while the third-largest province, British Columbia, only has six. The number of senators a province gets is generally connected to the length of time that province or territory has spent as part of Canada. So the two oldest Provinces (Quebec and Ontario) have 24 senators each, while the provinces that joined later have less. Today they justify this by arguing that even though the Senate is not equal per province, it is equal per "region". Here is the actual breakdown of seats:

So if you count Ontario as one region, Quebec as one region, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and BC as one region, and New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and PEI as one region then yes, the "regions" of Canada are equally represented, with 24 Senators. Of course this theory does not explain Newfoundland or the three Territories, which don't quite fit in. Likewise, these "regions" are quite arbitrarily defined, with no consistant political or geographic logic. And therein lies the controversy.

Appointing Senators

Though we say "the Prime Minister appoints the Senate," it may be more accurate to describe the Senate as a political hodgepodge, crafted from the appointments of many different prime ministers. Thus, even though the current Prime Minister of Canada is a member of the Conservative Party, there are still many Liberal senators, left over from the previous Liberal administration. The Liberals and the Conservatives are the only parties that have ever governed Canada, so there are no senators from any other parties. Appointment opportunities arise numerous times during a PM's tenure as sitting senators slowly die off or resign, and on average the Prime Minister gets to appoint a few every year.

Canada's first Prime Minister, John A. MacDonald, once famously described the Senate as a "House of Sober Second Thought" that could help curb the "democratic excess" of the House of Commons. Canada's political founders were all staunch British Loyalists, and thus were not too keen on embracing American-style democracy, instead believing an elite "check" on elected politicians was needed. Thus, they imposed a rule on Senate membership that mandated that only men who owned land and property valued at least $4,000 could serve as senators, in an attempt to exclude the poor riff-raff from a presence in Canada's upper house. $4,000 is not the vast fortune it once was, but the rule remains. Canada's Senate was never exactly founded on "noble principles", so it's certainly not an easy institution for politicians to defend today.

What the Senate Actually Does

While the Senate holds the power to veto any bill passed by the House, these powers are rarely exercised. Today, the Senate almost always quickly passes all legislation it gets, with very little discussion or debate. It's in many ways a figurehead institution, like the Queen or the Governor General.

Because of its pointless nature, critics of the Senate have alleged that the institution is fast becoming nothing more than a "country club" for friends of the Prime Minister. Senators get a lot of perks and high pay and they don't have to do much in return. An Ontario professor recently released a shocking report on the Senate, in which he revealed somewhere around 20% of all Senators never even bother showing up to vote. One Senator had even been living in Mexico for the last year, and was still collecting his Senate paycheck. The professor also pointed out that the only time all senators ever showed up for work was on "pay raise" days, in which they would vote to increase their salaries.

Scandals like these help explain the Senate's inconspicuous existance. Canadians tend to only vocally object to the Senate when it actually does something, so as long as the senators do not make a fuss or undermine the democratically-elected House of Commons, they will continue to get paid and enjoy all the perks of the office.

Though it has remained quietly in the background for many years, once in a great while the Senate will emerge from its content slumber to duke it out with the House of Commons and the prime minister. In 1986, for example, the Liberal-controlled Senate attempted to reject Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney's controversial new Goods and Service Tax. The Liberal senators filibustered and squabbled, and had big noisy temper tantrums, but Mr. Mulroney evoked an emergency clause in the constitution and appointed eight new Senators to swing the control of Canada's upper house back into the control of his party. So as you can see, even in these sorts of dramatic situations the Senate is still pretty useless.

Despite all the scandals, the Senate does perform one somewhat dignified purpose. Every year, at the start of the legislative session the Senate chamber hosts a special event known as the Speech from the Throne. The Speech from the Throne is a very formal ceremony in which the ruling party outlines their legislative agenda for the coming year. The prime minister and his flunkies prepare a special speech, which is given to the Governor General (or in rare cases, the Queen herself) who in turn reads it from a special throne in the Senate before the all the MPs, Senators, cabinet ministers, and Supreme Court judges. There is a lot of tradition that accompanies the Throne Speech, and before the Governor General is even allowed to read it, there is this big elaborate ceremony in which weird Parliament people like "The Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod" knock on doors and give strange speeches as part of odd traditions that evoke obscure events in British history. Everyone dresses nicely for the Throne Speech, with the Prime Minister wearing a morning coast, the judges wearing their fur-trimmed robes, and the Governor adorned in all the trinkets and ribbons of her office. The throne speech is always broadcast live on TV, and it's generally treated as quite a big deal in the Canadian news media.