Organization: Queen's University at Kingston
Date: Thursday, 9 Apr 1992 20:15:42 EDT
From: <FAFARDP@QUCDN.QueensU.CA>
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: Alberta and an EEE Senate (was: Alberta Conservatives & Bilinguali
Distribution: can.politics
 <1992Apr7.233308.18391@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca>
 <1992Apr9.003715.22824@thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu>
 <1992Apr9.222519.10845@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca>

In article <1992Apr9.222519.10845@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca>,
golchowy@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca (Gerald Olchowy) says:
>
>Alberta has 10% of the votes in the House of Commons, and would
>have 10% of the votes in a EEE Senate...a vote is a vote...Alberta
>gains only indirectly in the belief that a stronger say for
>provinces smaller than itself and a slight diminuition in the say
>of the large provinces.
>
[stuff deleted]

>If the Senate
>can reduce the representation from Central Canada to less than
>40% (preferably to 33%), than that is sufficient to give the
>potential for effectiveness.

There is a premise in this argument, and indeeed, in many of the arguments
about Senate Reform that I find quite incredible.  Why do we think, first
of all that the House of Commons matters?  What reasons are there for
believing that the House, dominated as it is by Quebec and Ontario, has
any real power? The House is totally dominated by the executive branch,
namely the Cabinet and the public service.  MPs rarely have any
impact on policy and the government backbenchers, in particular are
stymied because they do not even have the luxury of complaining in
public.

Given the relative weakness of the House of Commons, why do we assume
that a reformed Senate would have power?  If the government of the day
does not like a bill that originates in the Senate, it will be defeated
by the government majority in the House.  More importantly, if there is
a risk that a bill might be defeated by the Senate, the government of the
day has a number of other options it can choose from quite apart from
passing legislation.  For example, it can regulate, spend, or, in some
cases do nothing.  A reformed Senate with stronger representation from
the West, can do little to change government regulation and would be
unlikely to fiddle with the budget since this would almost invariably
be deemed a confidence matter and few proponents of Senate Reform
are suggesting a new Senate should be given the power to defeat a
government.

It seems to me that Senate reform has become a highly symbolic issue
in Alberta and elsewhere.  As a result, Albertans have convinced
themselves that the a EEE Senate is the ticket to power even if this
is unlikely in fact.  As a former Albertan, I remember the line in the
late 1970s and early 1980s -- the ticket to power was to elect more
government (preferably Tory) MPs and defeat that bastard Trudeau.
Well this is what they did in 1984 and again in 1988 and it did not
seem to make much difference...... hmmm .... does this not suggest
something about the power, or lack thereof, of the House of Commons.
Frankly, Albertans, Westerners generally, and anybody else who is
counting on a EEE Senate to change the distribution of power risk
disappointment when a reformed Senate does not, indeed cannot deliver.

We continue to believe that Parliament, the House of Commons and the
Senate, have power.  The sooner we abandon this notion the better.