Restructuring of Canadian Senate Gets Lift in Alberta

Canadians got a look last month at their first-ever elected Senate nominee, an election some observers view as the nation’s first cautious step toward restructuring the century-old upper chamber of Parliament.

The election in Alberta of Stan Waters as the province’s Senate nominee is, said Alberta-based political scientist David Elton, spurred by a feeling of alienation in western Canada.

Alberta is a relatively small province that has little influence at the federal level. Its citizens are fed up, Elton said, with a parliamentary system that fails to mediate regional concerns and is dominated by the provinces of Quebec and Ontario to the east.

Alberta insisted on holding elections to express the widespread desire for Senate reform, Elton added.

Canada’s Parliament is made up of 295 elected members in the House of Commons and 104 appointed members of the Senate. The number of seats in the Senate does not change, although there are frequent vacancies as members retire. Quebec and Ontario dominate both chambers because of their huge population base.

Those in favor of an elected Senate believe that an equal number of representatives from each province would remedy the imbalance in the House of Commons, since western provinces or any other region could vote as a bloc in the Senate.

The concept of an elected Senate is supported by the majority of Canadians and elected politicians and most of the current senators.

The general perception of Canada’s Senate is one of aging political cronies who rubber-stamp government legislation without submitting it to any “sober second thought,” as was originally envisioned when the country’s parliamentary system was established.

The senators serve until age 75, most of them reportedly doing little to earn their $60,000-a-year salary and free airline travel.

No attendance records are kept, which allows senators to have full-time employment elsewhere. One senator, Ed Lawson, for years has served as head of the Teamsters Union in Canada.

The upper chamber is prevented by the Constitution from blocking money bills, but does have the power to amend or even kill other legislation.

The sometime frivolous nature of the Senate was reflected this year in a leaked report, commissioned by the senators, that recommended that their mahogany-trimmed offices be equipped with bathrooms, dressing rooms, closets and three-quarter-length mirrors. A private dining room was also a must, the report said, as well as a gymnasium with locker rooms, sauna, showers, exercise equipment and beds.

While Senate reform is generally favored, there is disagreement on how the body should be structured and whether its powers should duplicate those of the House of Commons.

Waters, a retired army commander and former chief of a major construction company, has made it clear he favors a “triple E” Senate: elected, equal and effective. Waters was backed in his bid for the nomination by the Reform Party, a fringe political party in western Canada that opposes bilingualism and wants a balanced federal budget by 1991.

At this point, it is unclear if Waters will even be allowed to take his seat in the upper chamber.

In Canada, the prime minister has traditionally had the right to choose members of the Senate. Under the terms of the so-called Meech Lake Accord negotiated two years ago by the provinces and the federal government, it was agreed the provinces could submit lists of nominees for Senate vacancies, leaving it to the prime minister to make the appointment.

Prime Minister Brian Mulroney promised that if the accord was ratified, he would begin negotiations aimed at Senate reform. But at least two provinces have held back approval because the accord recognizes Quebec as a “distinct society” and principal home in Canada of French-speaking people.

Elton believes the accord will eventually be approved but only if it contains a framework for Senate reform.

The deadline for ratification of the accord is next June.