Talk:Senate of Canada

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Contents

[edit] 2004

apperently the senate see's the remaining PC senators as a full-fleged party. they get "official party status" quite similar to Mr. St.Germain when he was the only CA Senator.

according to the Senate, the PC Party is still around. to avoid confusion I therefore named them the "Progressive Conservative Caucus"

Pellaken 05:00, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)

[edit] 2005

The seating chart needs to be updated as Liberal Herbert Sparrow retired January 4, 2005. The tables and appointment chart have already been updated. AndyL 00:17, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Nevermind, I've done it.

For future reference the official seating plan is at http://www.parl.gc.ca/information/about/process/senate/seatingplan/SenateSeatingPlan.pdf AndyL 00:51, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

PC PARTY STATUS

I called the senate, which had no clue. then I called the offices of the PC senators, and they told me that they are waiting for a ruling from the speaker and government house leader as to if they qualify as an official party or not. so this is as of yet undetermined.

NDP SENATOR

according to the official page - http://www.parl.gc.ca/common/senmemb/senate/ps-e.htm - the senator IS an NDP senator.

As I explained over on Talk:Carolyn_Parrish sometime ago, a member has the privilege to identify with whatever party label s/he likes. Ms. Dyck was appointed as a New Democrat and will remain as such until she says otherwise. She is, however, not a member of the NDP caucus. With respect to the PCs, they are now an official party under the Rules of the Senate, they will be apportioned part of the budget and will get to chair a committee, though both of these things may not happen until the next session. - Jord 23:58, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Powers of the Senate

There are actually two exceptions to the equality of the Senate and House of Commons in Canada. One is the power to originate "money bills" as noted. The other deals with changes to the Canadian Constitution.

Nominally, such changes need to be approved by both the House of Commons and the Senate. However, if the Senate does not approve such a change the House of Commons can, after 6 months, approve the change a second time and thus override the Senate.

[edit] Ambiguity

Known as the "Upper House", the Senate is far less powerful than...

So which is it, "the Upper House" or "the Senate"? Should that sentence perhaps start "Also known as..."? Or is it US POV, "those funny Canadians call their Senate the Upper House"? magetoo 12:50, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

It is the Senate. It is sometimes called the Upper House. Likewise, the House of Commons is sometimes called the Lower House. --Azkar 13:49, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
That is not exactly true, the British North America Act says, in section 17, "There shall be One Parliament for Canada, consisting of the Queen, an Upper House styled the Senate, and the House of Commons." There is no reference to the House of Commons as the "Lower House", though it is sometimes called that. - Jord 20:32, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
The opening of the BNA Act specified that Canada would have "a Constitution similar in Principle to that of the United Kingdom." Readers would have understood, given this context, that the House of Commons was the "lower house," a term often used in Britain. The reason the Senate had to be specified as the "upper house" was that Britain did not have a Senate, but a House of Lords. In other words, the Commons is constitutionally the lower house in Canada, even if these exact words do not appear in the legislation. HistoryBA
Oh yes, well obviously the Canadian House of Commons is a lower house. I was merely indicating that the Senate can be called the Upper House (i.e. a proper noun) while the House of Commons is simply a lower house but cannot accurately be called the Lower House. - Jord 21:53, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
The style in that day was to capitalize all nouns in a state document, whether proper nouns or not. HistoryBA 23:54, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
Yes, despite the fact that my username does not suggest so, I also have a BA in History and I understand the variance between capitalization between the the and now, and regardless of the capitalization in the quote which I cut & pasted, the term "Upper House" was meant as a proper noun. - Jord 04:22, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
Do you have any evidence? The use of "an" before "Upper House" suggests that it is a generic term, not a proper noun. HistoryBA 21:23, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
Bicameralism uses the phrase uncapitalized. Upper house does, too (except for in the article title). -Joshuapaquin 21:41, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Status of PC Senators

To clarify the situation with the Progressive Conservative Senators, they are NOT a "Recognized Party" in the Senate under the Rules of the Senate. When Senator St. Germain left the PC's and sat as the Canadian Alliance's first Senator, the Rules were changed to address third parties. A Recognized Party in the Senate was then defined as "a political party that (A) initially has five or more members in the Senate and is at the same time a registered party under the Canada Elections Act, and (B) continues without interruption to have five or more members in the Senate, whether or not it ceases to be a registered party under the Canada Elections Act." When the Alliance-PC merger occured, three Senators left the caucus, and asked to be identified as Progressive Conservatives. While they are identified as PC, they are treated as independents. Despite the Prime Minister's recent appointment of two additional PC Senators, they continue to function as independents, as the PC's are no longer a registered party under the Canada Elections Act.

[edit] Redundant power to appoint eight extras

I just noticed that there are two mentions of this power, each citing the same example of it's use. The one under "Senators" is needed and well written, but the one in "Legislative functions" seems redundant and irrelevant. Does anybody object to a complete deletion of the second mention? --rob 8 July 2005 20:15 (UTC)

Deletion done. The remaining wording about eight senators seems complete, and remained unchanged. No information was lost (just redundant words). --rob 17:10, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Legislative functions

Why do you have to wade through almost the entire article to get to the bit about legislative functions? Tony 04:24, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

There's a helpful little box at the top of the page marked "contents". 86.136.0.145 18:27, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Senator in Mexico ?

Several years ago there was a senator who hadn't come to the senate in years because he was living in Mexico. Does anyone remember who this was ? Dowew 03:40, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

See here - Jord 16:16, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Representation in the Senate

"Senate seats are divided among the provinces, so that Ontario, Quebec, the Maritime provinces, and the Western provinces are equally represented." - What a load of crap. By population, it is not fair.

--Liam27 07:00, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

The reason for this is that by population, the Maritime provinces are severely under-representated. The effect of this disparity is that it is next to impossible to have government support when it clashes with the interests of a more populated province. Such cases were the closing of CN Rail depots that were re-located to central Canada and cost thousands of maritimers their jobs, in a place where unemployment was already at 11%. The effect was to totally cripple the economy of those places, just to placate the populations of Quebec and Ontario. Also, when the senate was established, the maritime provinces were the ones to foot the bill for confederation, as Upper and Lower Canada were fledgeling provinces and not able to pay their way. Essencially, the Maritime provinces paid for a country that has turned their back on them in order to centralize the power, and therefor the population, of the central provinces. So, this helps balance the power of the federal government.

The Maritimes are not under-represented. They are actually over-represented. The maritimes are about 6% of Canada's population yet they have 24% of Senate seats. That's 4 times as much as they should have. So it's true that the Senate is not fair by population but that's because the Maritimes get too many seats. Also at the time of confederation there was no such thing as "Upper and Lower Canada", they had been merged into the province of Canada several decades before. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.226.18.229 (talk • contribs) 04:54, 22 Jan. 22 2006 (UTC).

Now that I think about it, we should take out that line because it is blantently untrue

Region | % of Population | % of Senate seats

Maritimes | 5.6% | 22.9% [(938134+757100+137900)/32438404]

Ontario |38.4% | 22.9% [12449502/32438404]

Quebec |23.3% | 22.9% [7568640/32438404]

Western |29.3% | 22.9% [(1,165,944+4,168,123+3,183,312+978,934)/32438404]

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.226.18.229 (talk • contribs) 05:07, 22 Jan. 23 2006 (UTC).

One of the purposes of the Senate is to provide regional representation. So, no, by population the regions aren't equally represented. That's not the point, though, of the distribution of Senate seats. --142.242.2.248 14:00, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
The problem is, they aren't equally distributed by region either. The atlantic provinces actually have 30 if you include Newfoundland. Secondly, grouping the 4 most western provinces into one region is just silly. BC has almost nothing in common (economically, politically, geographically, enviromentally, cuturally, etc) with Saskatchewan for example. Kilrogg 03:33, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Rep-by-pop is indeed what the House of Commons does. The Senate is a body of regional representation to offset the power of population by reflecting the regions. View the US Senate, which gives two to each state - Rhode Island and California are equal. However, this would not work as well in Canada because we have 10 provinces, they have 50 states; most states have "peers" that can join with them, whereas in Canada, very few provinces have "peers". It might work better if we divided large provinces like Ontario into senatorial regions each of which has a population closer to (but not as low as) the median population of all of Canada's provinces, then assign a number of senators to each of these senatorial regions and the less populous provinces. More populous provinces would still have more senators, but not as overwhelming as now. Provinces of population lower than the median would be overrepresented, while provinces above the median would be underrepresented, in terms of population. GBC 20:58, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
The real reason the seats are the way they are is because it was decided long ago, when the west was small and atlantic Canada still fairly large. Of course it is best to have an equalizing factor, but with 30 seats in Atlantic Canada it's hardly equal. Saskatchewan and Manitoba can get left behind too (actually all provinces complain about the others getting everything, and most of it is probably perception. Atlantic Canada gets a lot of support from the federal government). I think a senate with equal regions of Atlantic Canada (including NL), Quebec, Ontario, and the Prairie provinces, with B.C. as "half" a region, is what will probably end up happening. The West has complaints, too, about under-representation. If all of Western Canada is only equal to Quebec, this is hardly equality. You can't consider population for two provinces and not for the others. Besides, the senate will never be elected or have any real power if the balance is not shifted to reflect at least some of the population trends of the past century. And as long as the status quo remains, the equalizing factor is mythical anyway. Atlantic Canada should sacrifice a little for the sake of having the Senate elected and thus meaningful - Atlantic Canada would have more power this way than high representation in a lame-duck senate. 24.82.141.209 (talk) 01:59, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
All arguments for what would be the "most fair" way to divide distribution of Senate seats given current demographics are academic anyway since any meaningful reform would require a change to the constitution, which we already know is virtually impossible to achieve. Since our "first-past-the-post" electoral system already over-represents the majority in the lower house (whether it be a Liberal majority, a Conservative majority, or a population majority - i.e. Quebec and Ontario), I think it kind of a nice balance that the Senate now over-represents the "little guy" (i.e. the Maritimes, typically smaller both by population and by economic clout). This perception of mine is perhaps only comforting in a symbolic way since we know that a majority government can "stack" the Senate when it needs to push something controversial through (i.e. as Mulroney did to get the GST bill passed into law). The REAL democratic deficit in Canada is not to be found in the Senate but rather in the way we concentrate so much power in the PMO. I like the idea of eventually finding a way of having an elected Senate but, frankly, the various ideas I've heard coming from my fellow westerners, most being put forth as ways to achieve a "Triple E Senate" are not practical but rather would shift the balance of power to be even less fair than it already is. If Canadians want meaningful political reform the place to start is not with how we select senators but rather in how we decide which group of elected members of the House of Commons will form future governments. (BTW, great article, I will read in more detail and see if I can add some suggestions for improvement). Garth of the Forest (talk) 06:43, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vacant seats in current total

Someone has edited the seat composition table to make the total "105/105" — I would think that the logic in this change is that there are one hundred seats, including the vacant seats. However, I would think that it would be more appropriate (as I would think is more in keeping with the original intent of the table) for the numerator to be equal to 105, less the vacant seats. Would it be okay if I changed it back to "105/105"? FiveParadox 15:19, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand. You're going to change it from "105/105" to "105/105"? HistoryBA 18:02, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
My apologies! Meant "100/105".  :-S FiveParadox 00:11, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "The other place"

I've read a few transcripts of the Senate precedings, before, and notice they frequently refer to the House of Commons as "the other place". I'm just curious if there's a history behind the custom, or what. I don't recall ever seeing an MP refer to the Senate in that manner .. --142.242.2.248 14:03, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Actually MPs regularly refer to the Senate as "the other place" as well, here is a search which will produce you the results. I am not sure where the exact origins come from, but one would assume that as there are two chambers it makes sense; I could assume that it might be in the same manner that you don't refer to members by name, maybe you don't refer to the other chamber by name? That is just conjecture and I suppose this isn't really the place for it anyway ;) - Jord 15:09, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
Basically, parliamentarians aren't supposed to discuss affairs of the other chamber. So "the other place" is their workaround. Maureen McTeer once wrote that she thought that MPs were talking about heaven until her husband corrected her. -Joshuapaquin 20:22, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
This is a very common occurrence in Westminster parliaments. Members of the Australian Senate and House of Reps regularly refer to their counterparts in the other chambers as being "in another place", or "in the other place". I presume it goes back to a British tradition. JackofOz 02:58, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Criticism

hey, just browsing for a picture for a school project and i just happened to notice there was was no section titled criticism. is this covered? again, i didn't read the article. just looking for pictures... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.158.109.118 (talk • contribs)

Read the article. HistoryBA 20:22, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

This article would benefit from a criticism section, hopefully written by someone who knows a lost about the subject. [[Stargate70] 8 June 2006


[edit] Forestall

Here's the first link I've found about the senator's death: [1] Mindmatrix 14:12, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

More: [2] [3] Mindmatrix 14:20, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Visualisation

I'd just like to say that I think it would be nice to put in a visual representation of the seating in the Senate as there is on the House of Commons article. It doesn't have to be an actual picture, I mean in most of the Alberta Legislative Assembly pages these depictions are simple coded text to make coloured squares. I was just wondering if anyone else thought this was a good idea before I do it (because I can do that if others like this idea). (Grizzwald 14:42, 12 October 2006 (UTC))

Ok, it's been two weeks since I suggested this, so I'm going to go ahead and assume no one has a problem with this. I'm going to place the layout around the number of Senators table. (Grizzwald 22:10, 26 October 2006 (UTC))

[edit] Position of the "Senate Reform" section

I question to wisdom of having the reform section right after the history section (which seems, offhand, far too short), before discussing in detail the working of the Senate in the later sections. Surely the article should be first about what the Senate is rather than what some people want it to be. I am not saying, of course, that reform should not be mentioned (it has been a constant in Canadian political debate since Confederation, though I personally don't see what the problem is); I'm just saying that its placement in the article makes it seem as if reform of the Senate is more important than its actual, current functioning---which is preposterous. I would humbly suggest that the section be moved near the end, probably as far down as after "Relationship with the Government". 74.96.93.49 18:24, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

I concur, and after further study (I need to read the article more thoroughly first), if warranted, let's be bold, and do it. Garth of the Forest (talk) 06:48, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
Ah. An example of the important practice of read first, comment later. I see this has already been done. Good move. Garth of the Forest (talk) 07:13, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

In this section, it seems that the Meech Lake accord and Charlottetown accord were mainly senate reforms while they actually were constitutionnal reforms where the main objective was to get Quebec to ratify the constitution. The difference is important because the fact that these accord were defeated doesn't mean that the senate reforms they include were wildly impopular. It was a more complex issue than this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.57.149.180 (talk) 15:40, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Conflict in Data

Ok, we have a conflict on the number of senators. I know that the government website says that there are 65 Liberal Senators and 4 Independant, but on our List of Canadian Senators page, we have only 64 Liberal and 5 Independat. Raymond Lavigne's page states that he was ejected from the Liberal Caucus for missappropriations of Senate funds, which would thus make him an Independent Senator. So which data do we want to go on, the government page or our own page? (Grizzwald 07:24, 15 October 2006 (UTC))

Now I understand why the numbers were changed. There are a few things to consider. While media reports all said things like "Lavigne kciked out of caucus," and he is no longer listed on the Liberal website as one of their Senators, Graham's actual statement was that "It is inappropriate for Senator Lavigne to sit with the Liberal caucus until any investigations have been completed." This implies something more temporary. Furthermore, both the official standings on the parliamentary website, as well as the official Senate seating plan list him as a Liberal. Even if he has been ejected from caucus, he still identifies himself as a Liberal - a prerogative allowed to Senators irrespective of which caucus they sit in. Examples are the NDP and PC Senators. I think the solution would be to footnote the Liberal numbers indicating that Lavigne is no longer sitting in the caucus, but still identifies himself as a Liberal. Thoughts?PoliSciMaster 05:08, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
I think that's a good idea, and will go ahead and do it now. (Grizzwald 21:24, 16 October 2006 (UTC))

[edit] Meaningless statement

"Only Quebec is represented by a number of senators proportional to its share of the population." Who came up with that? If anyone can come up with a rational meaning for this, please enlighten me. Otherwise I'm taking it out. Foxmulder 06:16, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Whether or not it should be included in this article, this sentence seems to have a straightforward, rational meaning to me: The proportion of the total number of Senators that are Quebec senators is the same as the proportion of the total population of Canada that Quebec has. More concretely: Quebec Senators make up just under 25% of the senate, and Quebec's population is just under 25% of the population of Canada. --thirty-seven 19:01, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
Ohhh right, I see. Perhaps I'm an idiot. But that still seems a little unclear; when I looked at it, I thought "Well, there is a proportion of Senators per person, but there exists such a proportion for every other province too." I guess what threw me was the "number of Senators"; it's not really the number that the sentence is talking about, but the percentage out of the whole Senate. I will rephrase that so idiots like me can understand it ;) Foxmulder 05:37, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for making the effort to make this less ambiguous in the article. --thirty-seven 19:43, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
In order to make the "Population per Senator" table more transparent on this issue, I added a final row to the table for the total number of Senators (105) and the average nationwide population per Senator (301,075.2 based on the Canada 2006 Census total population of 31,612,897). This should make Quebec's proportional share more explicitly understandable as the next closest are Manitoba with 191,400.2 and Ontario with 506,678.4. --Kralizec! (talk) 22:42, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Abolition

So, some people and even two parties (NDP and Bloc Quebecois) want the Senate to be abolished. But what would the chamber and associated offices be used for after abolition?

Check out how much space the federal government leases from the private sector. Surely we could store some dusty old papers or museum quality items there instead ... oh wait ... we already do...>GRIN<Garth of the Forest (talk) 03:16, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Senator Elect?

What reason is there to list Bert Brown as a "Senator-in-waiting" rather than "Senator-elect"? Was he not elected? Giamberardino 02:26, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

There was an election, but it has no legal backing to it. The Crown can just ignore the results if they want. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 02:31, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
The practice to "elect" senators in my home province of Alberta is just a partisan bargaining chip used to appeal to the masses of "anti-Ottawa" lemmings out here that would vote Conservative even if their riding association nominated a fencepost to send to Ottawa. In reality, until there is a constitutional amendment, senators in Canada are and will continue to be appointed by Her Majesty the Queen (or, in her absence from the country, Her Majesty's representative the Governor General, on the advice of Her prime minister). The only way we will see a truly elected senate and some true form of democracy is when we finally shed the last trappings of colonialism and become a republic or some similar modern structure. In my opinion, it is long over due for Canadians to give the Queen and her inbred German future spawn the heave ho. However I doubt this will happen in my lifetime or my children's lifetime. Garth of the Forest (talk) 03:13, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Can-pol w.jpg

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BetacommandBot 05:40, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] # of vancacies?

The seat chart shows 10 vacancies, yet the smaller chart says 12. What gives? Also, the Liberal seats don't add up. GoodDay 18:12, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

The seating plan is from February, while the chart is up to date. The correct number of vacancies is 12.PoliSciMaster 20:09, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Harper's March 1 deadline

Can anybody add to this article, PM Harper's threat of dissolving Parliament (thus precipitating a Federal Election) if the Senate fails to pass his 'Crime Bill'? I wasn't aware that the PM could do so. GoodDay (talk) 18:15, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

The prime minister can advise the governor general to dissolve Parliament for any reason (or even for no given reason). Generally, the governor general is expected to oblige. --thirty-seven (talk) 01:49, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
Very interesting. GoodDay (talk) 16:47, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
As Thirty-seven has advised, in the Westminster style of parliament, the government can dissolve itself at any time ("resign"), however it risks being punished in the general election if it does so for frivolous reasons, hence all the political posturing. The government of the day will typically only do so if it is defeated on a confidence motion or budget bill, or, in the case of a majority government, if it is nearing the end of its current mandate. Canada has had very few minority governments in the past 100 years or so, we in the prairies in particular have grown accustomed to sending our fenceposts - er, I mean - representatives - to Ottawa every 4 or 5 years or so, and when something as boring as a general election is brought to the forefront in the news more frequently than that, western Canadians tend to get grumpy and punish those they feel were responsible for reminding us of our democratic responsibilities. Most of us are too busy spending money we don't have to be bothered with something so mundane as exercising our democratic responsibilities. (removing tongue-from-cheek...) Garth of the Forest (talk) 15:06, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Does anyone know why its called a senate?

It might seem an odd question but why is it called a senate and not a house of lords? is it just because they didn't want the members to become lords?(Morcus (talk) 23:51, 10 June 2008 (UTC))