Civics Debate: Proposition Case
Defining Terms:
Senate elected: Senates of Canada should be elected as members of House of Commons, but not appointed by the Governor General on the advice of Prime Minister.
Points:
- If one of the candidates, who is a member of the opposition party, wins the senate election, should the Prime Minister still appoint him/her to the Senate? Also, for the supporters or members of the NDP, which thinks Senate should be abolished, they will not willingly and likely to run candidates. Therefore their interests are not represented and will cause an unfair situation.
- It is possibly that there be riding boundaries established, or the candidates be elected through an at-large system. Most of the population in Canada now lives in urban areas than rural areas. The introduction of an at-large system will give urban areas a larger voice. Again this will also case an unfair situation.
- There are also problems about campaign finances. Who are going to finance the candidates? If there are spending limits, will those limits be set by the provinces or the federal government?
- The Senate was intended to mirror the British House of Lords, which means to represent the social and economic elite. The first Prime Minister of Canada, Sir John A. Macdonald, described Senate as a body of “sober second thought” that would curb the “democratic excesses” of the elected House of Commons. Canada should not disobey the original need for Senate; therefore the Senate should not be elected.
- In the process of making a Bill becomes a Law, the Senate plays an important role. Members of House of Commons come up with an idea and the Senate has to prove it on a significant stage. However, an elected senator might be very popular and powerful because he or she has large amount of supporters in order to win the Senate elections. Therefore, he or she might be able to block the will of the House of Commons.
- To follow the US model to have elected Senate is not necessarily good for Canada. Almost every bill that goes through the US senate has additional spending tacked onto it and US senators viciously guard what they view as their right to spend taxpayer dollars. However, in Canada, since the Senate is not elected so the senators don’t have to worry about being re-elected. So they don’t need to tack on pork items to bills in order to appease their supporters. Therefore, an elected Senate will not enhance Canadian democracy but will just bankrupt the country like elected Senate in the US.
- The Senate is technically as powerful as the House of Commons. However, if the Senate is elected, there will be a much powerful Senate than the House of Commons. Therefore the two chambers of the Parliament will be highly incongruent in the composition, which is not good for any federal decision making.
