Electoral Reform (Senate, Commons, & Gov Gen)

[Jed]

So we leave the Senate as is? We also leave FPTP in?

;D plus 1

 

[jmt18325]

So we leave the Senate as is? We also leave FPTP in?

I'm actually somewhat hesitant about changing the electoral system. BI think the Senate could use some tweaking, but I think the requirements for the change needed would be more damaging than anything we'd gain.

 

[PuckChaser]

Changing anything will just expose the long simmering powderkeg of regional divides. Even changing how we elect MPs will open that up, without ever touching the Constitution.

 

[McG]

Changing anything will just expose the long simmering powderkeg of regional divides. Even changing how we elect MPs will open that up, without ever touching the Constitution.

I suppose you can substantiate this opinion with a reasonable argument?

 

[PuckChaser]

The stated opinion of many provinces are polar opposites between elect, abolish, or status quo. Would Quebec ever vote for a system where they lose the disproportionate amount of seats based on population? Nope. Someone already mentioned Meech Lake, and that's an apt comparison. We can't even come together to build a pipeline.

 

[RDBZ]

The Australian Constitution was the "second draft" if you will ... and it featured an elected upper house, which was just being imagined in the USA at the same time, because London was a bit more liberal-progressive in its views on democracy than was the USA.

The Australian Constitution was drafted over a number of years by a series of constitutional conventions, where selected delegates represented each of the states-to-be.  It was at those conventions that all details were crafted and agreed, often following an assessment of options provided by other constitutional models then in place.  Interestingly, the delegates explicitly rejected a UK style model.  That home grown development model was needed as the voters of each of the states-to-be needed to ratify the constitution at referendum prior to federation.

 

[McG]

The stated opinion of many provinces are polar opposites between elect, abolish, or status quo. Would Quebec ever vote for a system where they lose the disproportionate amount of seats based on population? Nope. Someone already mentioned Meech Lake, and that's an apt comparison. We can't even come together to build a pipeline.

You are skating.  There is no substance to back your claim that one would disturb a "powderkeg of regional divides" by re-examining how MPs are elected.

 

[Castus]

The stated opinion of many provinces are polar opposites between elect, abolish, or status quo. Would Quebec ever vote for a system where they lose the disproportionate amount of seats based on population? Nope. Someone already mentioned Meech Lake, and that's an apt comparison. We can't even come together to build a pipeline.

Surely in some ways, it may be better that we open up and expose these divides, should they exist in reality, as opposed to allowing them to fester in the shadows?

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

Actually, right now and from a mathematical point of view, Quebec is the only province that has basically the right number of MP's and the right number of Senators in term of proportionality.

The Western provinces, as a group (because that is how the constitution frames it), has about a proper proportional number of Senators give or take a few, but they may not be divided properly amongst Western provinces.

In the Commons, the West and Ontario are under-represented, while in both he Commons and Senate, the Atlantic provinces are way, way over represented.

In fact, if you had to do a new distribution on a proper geographical basis, you would have to use Quebec as your baseline for both Commons and Senate and the West and Ontario would make ground, while the Atlantic provinces would have a heart attack when seeing the results, especially PEI, which may not even rate having its own member of Parliament without being paired with part of the mainland (Honourable member for P.E.I.-Pictou, please?)

 

[Kirkhill]

Actually, right now and from a mathematical point of view, Quebec is the only province that has basically the right number of MP's and the right number of Senators in term of proportionality.

The Western provinces, as a group (because that is how the constitution frames it), has about a proper proportional number of Senators give or take a few, but they may not be divided properly amongst Western provinces.

In the Commons, the West and Ontario are under-represented, while in both he Commons and Senate, the Atlantic provinces are way, way over represented.

In fact, if you had to do a new distribution on a proper geographical basis, you would have to use Quebec as your baseline for both Commons and Senate and the West and Ontario would make ground, while the Atlantic provinces would have a heart attack when seeing the results, especially PEI, which may not even rate having its own member of Parliament without being paired with part of the mainland (Honourable member for P.E.I.-Pictou, please?)

En effet, c'est vrai la.  Le Quebec, c'est parfait.  Il faut que tous les autres changent, n'est ce pas?  [

Or we could make PEI the standard and adjust the house to 964 MPs.  Or we could adjust to an Alberta standard and have 288 MPs.

Personally, I kind of like the idea of 964 MPs,  with the same total budget.  Part time MPs.  And a whole lot of people that are never going to get a seat in Cabinet.

They might start taking their parliamentary duties seriously and guard their privileges as guardians of the public purse.

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

All I am saying is that, at this point in time, Quebec, with 23.5 % of the country's population, 23% of the seats in the commons and 24% of the seats in the Senate is currently the only place that doesn't have a potential beef where it comes to fair representation at the Federal level  :nod:.

Now, I have no problem with your idea of using PEI as the base and go for a 964 MP's commons. In fact, throw in the power, as in the old days and as still exists in the UK and Australia, for the party caucus to throw out their leader and put anew one in any time they feel it is necessary and I'll be on side.

In such system, the backbenchers chances of ever making it into cabinet is so small that they guard their chances for re-election like hawks, and as result, the government has to work a lot harder at getting them onside. It disposes of many a stupid government idea before it even makes it out of caucus and give the backbenchers real power to hold over the head of their leaders.

 

[Altair]

It appears that senators are starting to think that they actually matter and are starting to act like it. I guess we shall see if this is a good thing or a bad thing.

http://www.nationalpost.com/m/wp/blog.html?b=news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/michael-den-tandt-unconstrained-senate-has-the-power-to-gut-legislation-starting-with-assisted-dying-bill

It may be that Peter Hogg, the eminent legal scholar, is correct in saying the Trudeau government’s law on assisted dying, Bill C-14, won’t survive a challenge before the Supreme Court of Canada. Or it may turn out Hogg and the many experts who agree with him are wrong. We won’t know for sure unless and until this legislation gets before the high court.

Either way, the government now has a different and potentially bigger problem on its hands: that of an unfettered, unelected Upper Chamber, feeling its oats in a way that is politically new, because of the freeing of senators from party control. This is a direct consequence of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s ejection of Liberal senators from the party and caucus in January of 2014, as the Senate spending scandal raged.

It was a political tour de force at the time. It now has the potential to become a constitutional nightmare, unless the prime minister and cabinet maintain absolute resolve to pass Bill C-14 more or less in its current form, and tell the 86 current members of the Senate, a majority of whom want the bill drastically amended, to go pound sand.

There are numerous concerns with C-14 as it now reads. But they resolve into a few key points.

From the right comes a desire to shore up conscience language for health workers who don’t want to participate in assisted death for moral or other reasons, and the slippery-slope argument. From the left (though left-right definitions are mashable here) comes the insistence the law be more liberal, to allow access even where death is not immediately imminent, as the Supreme Court in its 2015 Carter ruling clearly states. Advanced directives, whereby a person diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, for example, could choose assisted death before the loss of his or her faculties, are also certain to be among the Senate’s proposed amendments.

On every point, there will be no shortage of Canadians hewing strongly to one side or the other. But important elements have gotten eclipsed in the debate. Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould and Health Minister Jane Philpott made several of these clear in lengthy presentations to the Senate on June 1.

For starters, the language of the bill as now drafted does not say death must be imminent, that is, days or even weeks away. It stipulates that in order to be eligible for assisted death, an individual must have a “serious and incurable illness,” and be in an “advanced state of irreversible decline in capability.”

Aha! says the “make it less restrictive” camp, informally led by Sen. James Cowan; that’s a deviation from the Supreme Court’s language, which cites only “grievous and irremediable” ailments that cause chronic, intolerable suffering.

But then, C-14 introduces this qualifier: “… natural death has become reasonably foreseeable, taking into account all of their medical circumstances, without a prognosis necessarily having been made as to the specific length of time they have remaining.”

The last clause would seem to allow room for interpretation and judgment by, among others, patients and their doctors. All our deaths are reasonably foreseeable at some indeterminate future time, to stretch the point for the sake of argument, even those of us who are not now dying. That may be why the justice minister has said repeatedly she believes Kay Carter, who suffered from spinal stenosis and whose case resulted in the SCC ruling, would have been eligible for an assisted death under C-14.

Moreover, there are other reasons that justify the legislation’s effort to narrow the window of accessibility, while leaving room for medical interpretation. Philpott in her submissions to the Senate made the point that the legislation, because of the Supreme Court’s imposition of a June 6 deadline, was crafted in a short time. Greater access requires greater complexity in the protective regimes to prevent abuses and mistakes, she noted. The guiding logic, therefore, was to open the door as far as absolutely necessary but no further — allowing emerging medical practice, future court cases and study to inform amendments down the road.

Here’s what that boils down to: The Liberals deliberately made their legislation tight, rather than loose, knowing there would be court challenges, and possibly a Supreme Court challenge, because that very process and the time involved were intended to provide opportunity for sober second thought. They also needed to allow for the vehemence of sentiment among those for whom the very idea of assisted death is morally problematic. The 86 sitting senators, in seeking to effectively gut and rewrite the bill, are short-circuiting that strategy.

They are legally and constitutionally within their rights to do so. They are politically able to do so because they no longer report to any higher authority. And they will do so again, and again — unless the Commons calls their bluff. If it doesn’t, the Senate holds the whip hand from here in. Eighty-six political appointees, with guidance from nine appointed Supreme Court judges, will rule this country.

The interesting part here is that this can bounce back between the Commons and the Senate indefinitely which each rewriting it and sending it back to the other. Or it can go from the Senate to the Supreme Court if my understanding is correct (like when the conservatives tried to pass legislation to reform the Senate the senators sent it to the Supreme court)

I wonder if we are going to be seeing some American style impasse between the two chambers going forward.

 

[Kirkhill]

Political checkers or policy chess?  I get a sense that Butts plays a mean game of checkers.

There is a real opportunity here to revisit the Parliamentary Supremacy issue here.

In a showdown between Senate and Commons the Commons should prevail.  In a showdown between Parliament and Court Parliament should prevail.  Notwithstanding any other documents.

 

[PuckChaser]

They do matter. Liberals C-14 was universally decried by assisted dying advocates as not coming close to the Supreme Court decision. So they're acting as the sober second thought, and providing amendments that should have been done in the House, but the Liberals were too busy ramming it through. Acting exactly like senators should.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Finally they are doing what they were suppose to and people are upset? The Senate should really be about what is good for Canada in the long run, not for a political party. 10 year stints and no party affiliations. 

 

[Kirkhill]

Finally they are doing what they were suppose to and people are upset? The Senate should really be about what is good for Canada in the long run, not for a political party. 10 year stints and no party affiliations.

Good post.  The Senate can do its job and still have the Commons supreme.  The Commons always have the last word with 2 out of 3 votes on any bill.

 

[Altair]

Good post.  The Senate can do its job and still have the Commons supreme.  The Commons always have the last word with 2 out of 3 votes on any bill.

Not always.

http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/politics/assisted-dying-senate-rejected-1.3629559

The potential Ping-Pong bill

Joyal says the many legal experts that have weighed in on the assisted-dying debate have said limiting eligibility to those with a reasonably foreseeable death makes the bill unconstitutional.

"To prevent delay and court challenge that will have to be born by patients who are in intolerable suffering — that's essentially what we did," Joyal told reporters Friday.

Senator Frances Lankin told Chris Hall on CBC Radio's The House, [which airs Saturday June 11, at 9:10 a.m. ET] that the Senate is facing a number of options if C-14 becomes a Ping-Pong ball bouncing between the Senate and the House of Commons.

"There's a possibility the Senate just does not deal with the bill, sends it to committee and leaves it there. It means it dies." Lankin said. "I think that would be a travesty if the Senate did that. This is important legislation."

She added the Senate could also pass the original bill with the belief it may be changed in the future through court challenges. Or both sides could take the rare step of holding a joint conference.

The Senate is the equal of the house of Commons. It has just rarely acted like it. To change that would mean constitutional reform.

 

[Kirkhill]

By convention the Commons rules. 

The danger of an "equal" Senate is the need for a Tie-Breaker to resolve the disputes.

The options for the Tie-Breaker are:  The Governor-General, The Governor-in-Council (essentially the PM) or the Supreme Court - Monarchy, Monarchy or Oligarchy.  None of those are to my liking.

I never got round to shaving my head - but I am a Parliamentarian.

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

There is no such tradition, I am afraid, nor is there any need for "tie-breaker". Parliament is not a Board of Directors or an Electoral group of some sort. It is important to remember that we are not a Republic, where the Executive must get its powers from the legislative branch to be able to act (a la USA). Here, the Government (the Crown) has all the powers until limited by acts of Parliament - to which the Crown even has to assent before subjecting herself to. That is why, for example, when the budget is not adopted in the US, Government grinds to a halt, while in Canada (under Trudeau Sr. and Clark governments) we went for more than three years without a budget while not a single government function went unfilled and not a single dollar went unspent.

Here, the Parliament only embodies the legislative power. If they cannot adopt a bill, there simply is no new law adopted. Big deal: Think; Review; Re-phrase; Edit; Change - and re-introduce the bill as so modified.

The one rule between the two chambers is that appropriation bills and new tax bill must originate in the HoC. As a tradition, this means that the Senate has elected to stay out of blocking such bills.

On all other subjects, the Senate is free to "block" (which it very seldom does, as it generally sends back legislation with amendments to the HoC, instead, leaving the HoC the final say on adoption of such amendments or not) any legislation, and if it does and the HoC wishes to insist on passing the legislation, then the proper way is for the PM to meet with the GG and ask for the House to be dissolved, go into a general election on that specific legislation, and when the governing party is re-elected on such specific mandate, then the Senate usually steps out of the way - considering it has done its job.

A good example of this is the Free Trade Accord. You may recall that when the accord was reached and legislation was being drafted to implement it, the Liberals came out in complete opposition and threatened to use their Senate majority to block any enabling legislation. PM Mulroney went into an election specifically on the Accord and won a clear majority. The Senate passed the legislation.

Another example of proper use here would be the upcoming (if any) changes to voting method. If the Senate felt that Canadians were not properly consulted and behind such an important change*, they could block it so it is sent to a specific election - or until a proper referendum is held that satisfies the Senate in both form and results.



* And in my estimation, by their own interpretation of voting, the Liberal cannot claim that Canadians want such change - as 60% voted against - and in the 40% that voted Liberal, you cannot tell what exactly they voted for, it being almost a self-evident statement that voters almost never vote in favour of all of a party's electoral promises, so support for any of them - unless made THE promise subject of the election [like Free Trade] - must necessarily be lower than the portion of popular vote. 

 

[Altair]

There is no such tradition, I am afraid, nor is there any need for "tie-breaker". Parliament is not a Board of Directors or an Electoral group of some sort. It is important to remember that we are not a Republic, where the Executive must get its powers from the legislative branch to be able to act (a la USA). Here, the Government (the Crown) has all the powers until limited by acts of Parliament - to which the Crown even has to assent before subjecting herself to. That is why, for example, when the budget is not adopted in the US, Government grinds to a halt, while in Canada (under Trudeau Sr. and Clark governments) we went for more than three years without a budget while not a single government function went unfilled and not a single dollar went unspent.

Here, the Parliament only embodies the legislative power. If they cannot adopt a bill, there simply is no new law adopted. Big deal: Think; Review; Re-phrase; Edit; Change - and re-introduce the bill as so modified.

The one rule between the two chambers is that appropriation bills and new tax bill must originate in the HoC. As a tradition, this means that the Senate has elected to stay out of blocking such bills.

On all other subjects, the Senate is free to "block" (which it very seldom does, as it generally sends back legislation with amendments to the HoC, instead, leaving the HoC the final say on adoption of such amendments or not) any legislation, and if it does and the HoC wishes to insist on passing the legislation, then the proper way is for the PM to meet with the GG and ask for the House to be dissolved, go into a general election on that specific legislation, and when the governing party is re-elected on such specific mandate, then the Senate usually steps out of the way - considering it has done its job.

A good example of this is the Free Trade Accord. You may recall that when the accord was reached and legislation was being drafted to implement it, the Liberals came out in complete opposition and threatened to use their Senate majority to block any enabling legislation. PM Mulroney went into an election specifically on the Accord and won a clear majority. The Senate passed the legislation.

Another example of proper use here would be the upcoming (if any) changes to voting method. If the Senate felt that Canadians were not properly consulted and behind such an important change*, they could block it so it is sent to a specific election - or until a proper referendum is held that satisfies the Senate in both form and results.



* And in my estimation, by their own interpretation of voting, the Liberal cannot claim that Canadians want such change - as 60% voted against - and in the 40% that voted Liberal, you cannot tell what exactly they voted for, it being almost a self-evident statement that voters almost never vote in favour of all of a party's electoral promises, so support for any of them - unless made THE promise subject of the election [like Free Trade] - must necessarily be lower than the portion of popular vote.

There is the Salisbury rule in the house of Lords where the house of Lords does not vote against anything that was in the governing party’s election promises.

That would apply to electoral reform here. It wouldn't apply to assisted dying as the liberals were mum on that during the campaign