Canada PoliticsIn losing Roméo Dallaire, the Senate loses a giant
Canada's much-maligned Senate is losing one of its bright lights.
Independent Liberal Senator Roméo Dallaire announced, Wednesday, that he will resign in June to spend more time on humanitarian causes and especially an issue near and dear to his heart: post-traumatic stress disorder. According to CBC News, he also hinted that the ongoing Senate scandal was one of the reasons he chose to retire now.
Dallaire — who suffers from PTSD — was appointed to the Senate in 2005 by then-prime minister Paul Martin. While he was a long-time Liberal supporter, he wasn't a failed candidate; he wasn't a party hack. He was a respected Canadian military man best known for leading as commander of the UN peacekeeping force in Rwanda. He is a Canadian hero.
[ Related: Roméo Dallaire, Senate Liberal, retiring from Parliament ]
Since the onset of the Senate expense scandal, we've had several Senators resign: David Braley, Hugh Segal, Mac Harb and Rod Zimmer. None of those departures elicited the reaction that Dallaire's did on Wednesday.
Thomas Mulcair, an advocate of abolishing the red chamber, called him an "extraordinary Canadian."
"The two examples that I've spontaneously given have been Nancy Greene Raine and Romeo Dallaire," the NDP leader told reporters on Parliament Hill.
"I've always said that they're such fine Canadians that I'm sure if they chose to run for the NDP [in the House of Commons] they'd get re-elected any number of times."
Senator Claude Carignan, Leader of the Conservative party in the Senate, released this statement.
"It is with sadness that I learned that Senator Roméo Dallaire will soon be leaving his position as a senator. His contribution to the work of the Senate is undeniable and he will be greatly missed.
"Senator Roméo Dallaire’s list of accomplishments is long and it was an honour to work with him in the Senate"
And the Ottawa Citizen editorial board took the unusual step of penning an almost gushing column about a departing parliamentarian.
"The best demonstrations of the sober-second-thought function of the Canadian Senate come from Senators who bring — or develop during their tenure — some specific expertise, or who command cross-party respect," they wrote.
"Senator Roméo Dallaire did both, and in some respects served as the conscience of Parliament."
[ Related: Liberals launch attack ad against Stephen Harper’s attempts at Senate reform ]
Coincidentally, his resignation comes on the heels of a new report which illustrates just how far the reputation of the red chamber has sunk over the past year.
According to a StrategyCorp survey chronicled by Postmedia News, the expense scandal actually had a bigger impact on the reputation of the Senate than Rob Ford's admission to smoking crack had on the Toronto Mayor's reputation or the gas plant scandal had on the Ontario Liberal government.
It's not a stretch to say that in the midst of the ongoing scandals, RCMP investigations, pending court battles and full audit of all expenses , the Senate and its reputation can ill afford to lose the likes of Roméo Dallaire.
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