Alberta Senate nominee elections

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The Senate chamber.

Alberta is the only Canadian province to elect nominees for appointment to the Senate of Canada in a process known as an Alberta Senate nominee election. These elections are non-binding as the appointment of senators is the jurisdiction of the federal government. The elections, however, are held under the auspices of the Alberta Senatorial Selection Act of 1987, which was passed in response to a proposal under the Meech Lake Accord that would have required the federal government to appoint senators from lists provided by provincial governments.

After the failure of the Meech Lake and subsequent Charlottetown Accords, the federal government continued its traditional practice of appointing senators without consulting the provinces. In 1998, the federal government of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien filled two vacancies in Alberta before an election could be held. The pro-Senate reform government of Ralph Klein amended the act in 1998 to hold elections for Senate nominees in advance of vacancies.

The amended Senatorial Selection Act looks six years ahead to see how many Alberta vacancies will exist in the Senate due to the mandatory retirement of senators at the age of 75. From 1998 onward, Senate nominees are elected for six year terms as a protest to push for senate reform. Whenever a vacancy arises in the senate from Alberta, the Albertan government formally requests that the Prime Minister appoint the Albertan nominees.

In May 2008, the government of Saskatchewan announced plans to hold similar elections.^[1]

1 Controversy
2 Elections
3 Notes
4 External links

[edit] Controversy

Although Senate reform is very popular in western Canada, where some provinces are under-represented in the House of Commons, Alberta's Senate elections are controversial.

Although Stan Waters, elected in the first Senate election of 1989, was appointed to the Senate by then-Governor General Ray Hnatyshyn, on the advice of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, in 1990, subsequently elected Senate nominees have not been appointed. Moreover, former Prime Minister Paul Martin said he would not recommend for appointment any nominees elected in this fashion because he does not support "piecemeal" Senate reform. Detractors of the Senate nominee election argue that it is a waste of time and money without federal co-operation, although proponents blame federal arrogance for causing the Senate elections to seem useless and argue that Alberta should be given credit for embarrassing the prime minister and refusing to allow the issue of Senate reform to be relegated to the back-burner. The cost of the election is estimated at $3 million by the Albertan government.

Although the Alberta Liberal Party did run a candidate in the 1989 Senatorial election when an appointment was guaranteed, it has since refused to run any candidates in the 1998 and 2004 elections because that would have contradicted the policy of its federal counterpart. The Alberta New Democrats have never supported or contested Senate elections and refused to run candidates in this election - the federal NDP currently calls for the Senate's complete abolition.

In 2004, Bert Brown, Betty Unger and Cliff Breitkreuz, nominated by the Progressive Conservatives, and Link Byfield, an independent, won the election. The federal Liberal government then in office vowed to ignore the results.

Then-prime minister Paul Martin has been accused of deliberately advising the Governor General to make youthful appointments for Alberta to ensure that none of the six Senators he appointed will reach the mandatory retirement age until Tommy Banks (who was appointed under direction of Chretien) turns 75 in 2011^{[citation needed]}. All six incumbents initially rejected calls to resign in order to make room for an "elected" appointment. The current prime minister still has the option of directly advising the monarch to make additional appointments for Senators from Alberta, although that has only been done once before (in 1990 by then-Prime Minister Mulroney who used this prerogative to ensure the passage of the Goods and Services Tax). Such a move would also require the appointment of an equal number of additional Senators for Ontario, Quebec and the Maritime Provinces (although there would be nothing to stop the prime minister from balancing out the appointments by, say, ensuring that all of the "unelected" appointments were days away from turning 75).

Current Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper supports elected Senators. On April 17, 2007 veteran Liberal Senator Dan Hays announced he would retire from the Senate by the end of June. The next day, Harper announced that Bert Brown would fill Hays' seat.^[2]