Thursday, September 21, 2023
No Result
View All Result
  • Media
Support Us
Macdonald-Laurier Institute
  • Home
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • Who Makes MLI Work
    • Tenth Anniversary
  • Experts
    • Experts Directory
    • In Memoriam
  • Issues
    • Domestic Policy
      • Agriculture and Agri-Food
      • Canada’s Political Tradition
      • Economic policy
      • Health Care
      • Innovation
      • Justice
      • Social issues
      • Telecoms
    • Energy Policy
      • Energy
      • Environment
    • Foreign Policy
      • Foreign Affairs
      • National Defence
      • National Security
    • Indigenous Affairs
  • Projects
    • The Great Energy Crisis
    • Centre for Advancing Canada’s Interests Abroad
    • Dragon at the Door
    • Canada and the Indo-Pacific Initiative
    • The Transatlantic Program
    • DisInfoWatch.org
    • Competition Policy in Canada
    • Speak for Ourselves
    • Justice Report Card
    • COVID Misery Index
      • Provincial COVID Misery Index
      • Beyond Lockdown
      • COVID and after: A mandate for recovery
    • Indigenous Prosperity at a Crossroads
      • Aboriginal Canada and Natural Resources
    • Past Projects
      • The Eavesdropping Dragon: Huawei
      • Talkin’ in the Free World with Mariam Memarsadeghi
      • An Intellectual Property Strategy for Canada
      • Munk Senior Fellows
      • A Mandate for Canada
      • Confederation Series
      • Fiscal Reform
      • The Canadian Century project
      • Fixing Canadian health care
      • Internal trade
      • From a mandate for change
      • Size of government in Canada
      • Straight Talk
      • Labour Market Report
      • Leading Economic Indicator
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Past Events
      • MLI Dinners
      • Great Canadian Debates
  • Latest News
  • Libraries
    • Inside Policy
    • Papers
    • Commentary
    • Columns
    • Books
    • Video
  • Home
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • Who Makes MLI Work
    • Tenth Anniversary
  • Experts
    • Experts Directory
    • In Memoriam
  • Issues
    • Domestic Policy
      • Agriculture and Agri-Food
      • Canada’s Political Tradition
      • Economic policy
      • Health Care
      • Innovation
      • Justice
      • Social issues
      • Telecoms
    • Energy Policy
      • Energy
      • Environment
    • Foreign Policy
      • Foreign Affairs
      • National Defence
      • National Security
    • Indigenous Affairs
  • Projects
    • The Great Energy Crisis
    • Centre for Advancing Canada’s Interests Abroad
    • Dragon at the Door
    • Canada and the Indo-Pacific Initiative
    • The Transatlantic Program
    • DisInfoWatch.org
    • Competition Policy in Canada
    • Speak for Ourselves
    • Justice Report Card
    • COVID Misery Index
      • Provincial COVID Misery Index
      • Beyond Lockdown
      • COVID and after: A mandate for recovery
    • Indigenous Prosperity at a Crossroads
      • Aboriginal Canada and Natural Resources
    • Past Projects
      • The Eavesdropping Dragon: Huawei
      • Talkin’ in the Free World with Mariam Memarsadeghi
      • An Intellectual Property Strategy for Canada
      • Munk Senior Fellows
      • A Mandate for Canada
      • Confederation Series
      • Fiscal Reform
      • The Canadian Century project
      • Fixing Canadian health care
      • Internal trade
      • From a mandate for change
      • Size of government in Canada
      • Straight Talk
      • Labour Market Report
      • Leading Economic Indicator
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Past Events
      • MLI Dinners
      • Great Canadian Debates
  • Latest News
  • Libraries
    • Inside Policy
    • Papers
    • Commentary
    • Columns
    • Books
    • Video
No Result
View All Result
Macdonald-Laurier Institute

Crowley in Postmedia papers: Serious Senate reform is our only option

April 25, 2014
in Columns, Domestic Policy Program, In the Media, Latest News, Political Tradition
Reading Time: 4 mins read
A A

Writing in the Ottawa Citizen, and Calgary Herald, MLI Managing Director Brian Lee Crowley comments on Friday’s Supreme Court ruling on the federal government’s Senate reform reference. As someone who was involved in negotiating the Meech Lake and Charlottetown accords, Crowley acknowledges that Canadians are rightly reluctant to open constitutional negotiations. But, he points out, “unless we are simply to throw up our hands and admit that our nation lacks the will and the means to fix fundamental national challenges like this, serious constitutional reform is our only option”. And he says it is possible to limit constitutional changes to the question of Senate reform, and foil provincial demands for broader negotiations.

Brian Lee Crowley, April 25, 2014

At least we know where we stand.

Friday’s Supreme Court of Canada ruling on Senate reform has essentially ruled out the Conservative government’s efforts to reform the Senate without resorting to constitutional reform.

The government’s motivation for its plan was reasonable: Canadians dislike the Senate status quo but there is no appetite in Canada for constitutional discussions. As someone who helped negotiate both Meech and Charlottetown I heartily endorse that view. Few of us who were part of those processes want to do that again and the outcomes damaged rather than strengthened Canada.

Yet the Supreme Court’s decision does nothing to change the fact that the Senate as currently constituted is unacceptable to Canadians. It is a 19th century relic whose appointed nature, lifetime (until age 75) tenure and lack of democratic accountability are unworthy of a powerful legislative body in 2014.

Yet the Supreme Court’s decision leaves us with only three choices: the status quo, reform or abolition, with the latter two unambiguously requiring constitutional amendment and even unanimity in the case of abolition.

Despite much whistling past the graveyard, the Liberal claim — that they have shown that the status quo can be reformed simply by distancing themselves from their own senators — is nonsense. Any serious legislative body has partisan features and attempting to exclude them is anti-democratic. Party is essential to politics and we will see that every time the Liberal Party wants its “formerly Liberal” senators to vote a certain way.

Improved appointment processes will not resuscitate this dead parrot either. Appointment in 2014 is wrong in principle.

As for Thomas Mulcair and the NDP’s preference of abolition, the Supreme Court now says that unanimity is required. So the premier of PEI (or New Brunswick or Manitoba) could veto it even if abolition had the support of three quarters of the population and the other nine provinces.

So unless we are simply to throw up our hands and admit that our nation lacks the will and the means to fix fundamental national challenges like this, serious constitutional reform is our only option.

Before you call the Mafia to take out a contract on me, consider for a moment what it is we all detest about constitutional discussions. It is their open ended nature with every province, territory, First Nation and interest group bringing its own issues to the table. By the time you buy enough people off to meet the “7 provinces representing 50 per cent of the population” threshold for basic constitutional amendment, the reform looks like a Christmas tree the cat just knocked over.

As I argued a few months ago in a big paper on Senate reform, it doesn’t have to be this way. We need some means to focus attention in a single issue, debate it on its merits and make a decision about what is good for the country on that issue alone.

We can do that. What is required is a federal government with the chutzpah to put a reasoned Senate reform plan to all Canadians in a referendum. A sensible plan would, I believe, achieve a large national endorsement. Ottawa could then challenge the provinces to defy their own voters and turn down the reform. The provinces would huff and puff but I think they would fall into line. As long as none of the reforms required unanimity no province would have a veto.

That last qualification is a vital one. As we just saw with abolition, the logic of unanimity confers huge bargaining power on holdout provinces because they can bring the whole process crashing down. The logic of the so-called 7/50 rule is that we can have up to three holdouts and it doesn’t matter. As soon as you have your 7/50, the bargaining power of the naysayers falls more or less to zero. I believe that we would find the seven provinces we need if faced with a large national consensus for the federal plan endorsed in a referendum. The popular backing ought to be sufficient for Ottawa to see off attempts by the provinces to get other issues on the negotiating table, because they can say they are pursuing the mandate they have been given by the people of Canada.

Is it risky? Of course. Few things worth having aren’t. But the status quo has its risks too, including playing into a deepening national disillusionment with all things political. Great countries need sound institutions to keep leaders and voters connected. Canadians find the principles on which the current Senate is based repugnant and anachronistic. The Supreme Court has clarified what the tools are we have to work with. Time to roll up our sleeves and get the job done.

Brian Lee Crowley (twitter.com/brianleecrowley) is the Managing Director of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, an independent non-partisan public policy think tank in Ottawa: macdonaldlaurier.ca.

Share this:
Previous Post

Cross in the Post: The faulty assumptions behind ‘Big CPP’

Next Post

Crowley quoted in the Post on Senate reform

Related Posts

Romanian Energy Minister, Sebastian Burduja, talks energy security with Jonathan Berkshire Miller
Video

Romanian Energy Minister, Sebastian Burduja, talks energy security with Jonathan Berkshire Miller

September 21, 2023
Canada-Japan cooperation to counter China’s disinformation campaigns: Charles Burton for Inside Policy
Columns

It’s time for Canada to implement a foreign policy reset: Stephen Nagy in the Japan Times

September 21, 2023
Covid-19, the test bioethics failed: Tom Koch for Inside Policy
Inside Policy

Covid-19, the test bioethics failed: Tom Koch for Inside Policy

September 21, 2023
Next Post

Crowley quoted in the Post on Senate reform

Newsletter Signup

Follow us on

Macdonald-Laurier Institute

323 Chapel Street, Suite #300
Ottawa, Ontario, K1N 7Z2 Canada

613.482.8327

info@macdonaldlaurier.ca
MLI directory

Support Us

Support the Macdonald-Laurier Institute to help ensure that Canada is one of the best governed countries in the world. Click below to learn more or become a sponsor.

Support Us

  • Inside Policy Magazine
  • Annual Reports
  • Jobs
  • Privacy Policy

© 2021 Macdonald-Laurier Institute. All Rights reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • Who Makes MLI Work
    • Tenth Anniversary
  • Experts
    • Experts Directory
    • In Memoriam
  • Issues
    • Domestic Policy
      • Agriculture and Agri-Food
      • Canada’s Political Tradition
      • Economic policy
      • Health Care
      • Innovation
      • Justice
      • Social issues
      • Telecoms
    • Energy Policy
      • Energy
      • Environment
    • Foreign Policy
      • Foreign Affairs
      • National Defence
      • National Security
    • Indigenous Affairs
  • Projects
    • The Great Energy Crisis
    • Centre for Advancing Canada’s Interests Abroad
    • Dragon at the Door
    • Canada and the Indo-Pacific Initiative
    • The Transatlantic Program
    • DisInfoWatch.org
    • Competition Policy in Canada
    • Speak for Ourselves
    • Justice Report Card
    • COVID Misery Index
      • Provincial COVID Misery Index
      • Beyond Lockdown
      • COVID and after: A mandate for recovery
    • Indigenous Prosperity at a Crossroads
      • Aboriginal Canada and Natural Resources
    • Past Projects
      • The Eavesdropping Dragon: Huawei
      • Talkin’ in the Free World with Mariam Memarsadeghi
      • An Intellectual Property Strategy for Canada
      • Munk Senior Fellows
      • A Mandate for Canada
      • Confederation Series
      • Fiscal Reform
      • The Canadian Century project
      • Fixing Canadian health care
      • Internal trade
      • From a mandate for change
      • Size of government in Canada
      • Straight Talk
      • Labour Market Report
      • Leading Economic Indicator
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Past Events
      • MLI Dinners
      • Great Canadian Debates
  • Latest News
  • Libraries
    • Inside Policy
    • Papers
    • Commentary
    • Columns
    • Books
    • Video

© 2021 Macdonald-Laurier Institute. All Rights reserved.

IDEAS CHANGE THE WORLD!Have the latest Canadian thought leadership delivered straight to your inbox.
First Name
Last Name
Email address

No thanks, I’m not interested.