Taxpayer watchdog calls for national vote on fate of the Senate

You wouldn't think that the NDP have much in common with members of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

The latter, after all, is perceived to be a right-leaning, low tax, small government type organization whereas the NDP is, well, none of those things.

When it comes to the Senate, however, these two diametrically opposed entities are now on the same page.

On Thursday, with a giant Mike Duffy balloon behind him, CTF Federal Director Gregory Thomas launched a petition campaign to ask the federal government to hold a referendum on the fate of the upper chamber.

"Senate reform has largely been a failure," Thomas said in a press release.

"It’s time to let Canadians decide whether they even think the Senate is worth keeping anymore."

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Interestingly, prior to this week, the CTF's official position was to reform the Senate. But an internal survey found that 65 per cent of their supporters favoured abolishment while 82 per cent approved of holding a national referendum.

[ Related: More bad news for Tories as details of RCMP case against Mike Duffy emerge ]

This is just the latest of several anti-Senate campaigns buoyed by the Senate expense scandal.

In May, the NDP launched their roll-up the red carpet petition to abolish the senate.

Also in May, Democracy Watch, an independent democracy watchdog, launched a 'Shut down the Senate'campaign on their website.

And even a Conservative Senator — Hugh Segal — has suggested that we have a national referendum about the Senate with a simple question: Do you think the Senate should be abolished yes or no?

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Certainly, abolishing the Senate is much easier said than done.

Appropriately, the Conservative government is seeking clarification from the Supreme Court on "what is required to reform the Senate and what is required to abolish the Senate."

Meanwhile, most constitutional academics say abolishing the Senate would almost certainly require 7 out of 10 provinces, representing 50 per cent of the total population, to agree and there's a good chance that it would require unanimous consent of all the provinces.

You'd have to think that some of the smaller provinces, which are over-represented in the upper chamber, would block that. Moreover, abolishing the senate, would mean opening up a constitutional can of worms.

"[A push for abolition would] become very quickly part of a larger constitutional reform package, and that would ultimately lead into the decay and destruction of recent efforts to reform the constitution," Ned Franks, a constitutional expert at Queen’s University, told the National Post.

"They just are not profitable. You wind up pitting group against group."

But what if over 60 per cent of Canadians voted to abolish the senate in a referendum?

Is that something politicians could really ignore?

Thomas doesn't think so.

"This is a democracy, after all," he told Yahoo! Canada News.

"We believe that an unelected Senate passed its best-before date sometime around the First World War. It’s outrageous that we still have unelected Senators blocking legislation that was passed by the elected House of Commons, now in the 21st century.

"The purpose of this campaign is to focus pressure on Canadian politicians to hold a national vote on the Senate, and we expect to succeed with it!"

(Photo courtesy of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation)

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