Cleaning staff prepare the Senate for the next session, which begins Sept. 14 amid heightened threat of a snap election.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
The federal government is offering leftovers to Canadians who are waiting for meaningful Senate reform. Instead of tinkering with term limits, Stephen Harper should invest some political capital to encourage the direct election of senators.
It is clearly Mr. Harper's prerogative to fill five Senate vacancies. A better, more independent chamber is not in the cards; despite his reformist airs, Mr. Harper has no political motive for veering from the established, effective pattern of preferring party loyalists over people of autonomy and talent, especially with a Conservative majority in the Senate within reach.
Enter the pretense of change. Mr. Harper is reviving the idea of placing an eight-year term limit on new senators. It is not a credible commitment: Legislation that would achieve this, Bill S-7, has languished in the Senate for seven months. On its own merits, the idea is a poor one; it would create two classes of senators. And in the context of more meaningful Senate reform, it is even anti-democratic; once they are elected, senators ought to be allowed to seek re-election.
Is senatorial election - one of the few Reform Party tenets that survive as Conservative policy, and a policy that would give the chamber some much-needed democratic legitimacy - still a priority? There is pushback, from Liberal senators and provincial premiers who say it would require a full constitutional review, and from others who want more comprehensive reform of the institution.
And so Mr. Harper abandoned his principles; a sensible bill establishing a framework for consultative elections of senators at the provincial level, from which the prime minister would likely appoint the victors, last saw House of Commons time 18 months ago and has not been reintroduced since.
For decades, a desire for perfect, all-encompassing change has doomed Senate reform. The most egregious fault of the institution - its lack of accountability - should be fixed first, and fixed soon. Elections can be held, as they were in Alberta, while other aspects remain unsettled, without putting the institution off balance. Mr. Harper could make recalcitrant premiers the following offer: Hold elections for the Senate vacancy in your province, invite all comers (including candidates from different political parties) and let the people choose. Otherwise, a Tory gets the nod.
Mr. Harper is reputed to be a peerless political tactician. He ought to use his skills in the service of an institutional change that would be pro-democratic, and one that Canadians would overwhelmingly support.