Canada PoliticsCanada’s senators defend the Senate
It looks as if our honourable senators have embarked upon a public relations campaign — organized or not — to justify their existence to a scandal-weary Canadian public.
Over the past week, several senators have penned letters to the editor of some Canada's major newspapers.
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The latest literary defence came from Conservative Senator Nicole Eaton who, in a column for the National Post, lashed out at media for its "intense rhetoric."
The recent opinion pieces of several of our national columnists and certain politicians, responding to the recent spending scandals currently embroiling several senators, has been strong indeed. The Senate has been described as “a slush bucket of partisan rewards,” ‘a networking event with diplomatic passports,” and “like any crime-ridden public-housing project.” Those are just a few of my favorites.
Why not simply call us pigs at the trough? Why so personal? Why the need for such vitriol? Shouldn’t the public discourse be more about the quality and quantity of what the overwhelming majority of us actually do and deliver?
Eaton went on to outline some of the Senate's past successes and particularly its committee work.
I must have missed the national discussion and passionate outpouring of commentary from major media outlets several years back when, under the leadership of Senators Eggleton and Keon, the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology tabled its report “Early Childhood Education and Care: Next steps?” Or when Senators Mokler and Robichaud released to the public the Standing Senate Committee on Forestry and Agriculture’s report, “The Canadian Forest Sector: A Future based on Innovation.”
Do Canada’s best and brightest journalists see no value in such pursuits?
Conservative Senator Doug Black was more conciliatory. In his column, for the Globe and Mail, he offered-up a seven-point plan to fix the Senate while writing that Canadians don't want a "system of government in which a House of Commons dominated by Ontario and Quebec is the only body that determines Canada’s laws."
"We are an uncommonly diverse nation and we deserve a more balanced distribution of power.
The decision to include the Senate in Canada’s Parliament was not an accident of history. It was the product of reflection and choice by the Fathers of Confederation, who understood that an upper chamber could foster national unity by equally representing regional interests. Since then we have embraced co-operation and compromise in Canada’s governance and, as a result, our country will soon celebrate its 150th birthday as one of the most free and prosperous societies in the world."
And, in the Chronicle Herald, Liberal Senator James Cowan touted the regional argument but also talked about the upper chamber's legislative oversight.
Another important role of the Senate, like any second Chamber, is to be a second “set of eyes” on proposed legislation: the “sober second thought” function.
This can provide an opportunity for further reflection, both after some time has passed from what can be turbulent events that gave rise to a bill, and at a slight remove from the usually more partisan and charged atmosphere of the House of Commons. George Washington reportedly called the U.S. Senate “the saucer that cools the tea.” Our Senate was intended to fulfil the same function.
In fact, this review process has proven highly significant. Over the decades, the Senate has passed hundreds of amendments to bills that have then been accepted by the House of Commons. The different backgrounds and life experience that senators bring to their work, the less partisan atmosphere of the Senate, and the expertise that senators develop because of their longer terms in Parliament, all contribute to the Senate providing a different perspective than MPs.
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The arguments above are solid and probably ones that haven't been promoted enough by pundits and analysts over the past several months.
But amid the Senate expense scandals, these senators have a tough sell job ahead of them.
(Photo courtesy of the Canadian Press)
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