The size and composition of the Senate, the qualifications of its members, the term and the manner of appointment are prescribed in the constitution. Even a minor reform of the Senate, such as electing Senators and setting term limits, would require an amendment to the constitution. Proposing to reform the Senate without a constitutional amendment is a cynical political gimmick.

The House of Commons is often referred to as Parliament, but the two are not synonymous: the constitution defines Parliament as consisting of the Queen, the House of Commons, and the Senate. To reform the Senate, therefore, means to reform Canada’s Parliament. Any consideration of reforming the Senate must start with an understanding of the purpose of this chamber. The Senate is often referred to as the chamber of sober second thought, but its constitutional role is to represent four Canadian divisions: Ontario, Quebec, the Maritimes, and the West. The Senate’s role is, thus, not to judge whether legislation adopted in the House of Commons is intrinsically reasonable, but to assess legislation from the country’s many regional perspectives. Legislation may be appropriate for Ontario, but it could have undesirable consequences in British Columbia.

The constitution of 1867 calls on Senators to represent geopolitical regions. Are geopolitical divisions as relevant today as they were then? Are there more pronounced divides or matters in Canada today that should be considered in conjunction with Senate reform? For example, the country’s urban-rural divide runs through the Senate’s divisions. Should the present Senate divisions be retained? Should they be refined? Or should they be replaced with constituencies defined by criteria other than geopolitical boundaries? What about Canada’s social, cultural and economic divides?

Democracy’s virtues are justice, fairness, and equity. The measure of a country’s democratic ethic is not the efficacy by which the will of the majority is enforced, but the degree to which the majority’s will is constrained or moderated by democracy’s virtues. Notwithstanding questions about the fairness of elections for the House of Commons, its role is to represent the will of the majority of the people. Does Parliament need two chambers to represent the same majority?

We have to decide if we want to tinker with the method by which Senate seats are filled or if we want to “reform” the Senate. The Senate we have today was created in 1867 with a look to the future from the perspective of the day. Senate reform should proceed on the same principles. What are the virtue deficits in Canadian democracy today? Are there democratic virtues we want to have achieved for Canadian society by the end of the 21st century? What needs to change in the ways the country is governed to achieve the desired objectives? How could a second chamber in Parliament contribute to the achievements of these objectives? We cannot reasonably debate the question of how to fill Senate seats unless we first reach a consensus on the Senate’s responsibilities. A debate on how to fill Senate seats absent a clear understanding of the responsibilities the constitution should assign to the Senate is a vacuous debate.

The debate on the role of the Senate and its responsibilities must be extensive and involve society as a whole if it is to be a democratic exercise. We have a Canadian precedent for this. The process should be modelled after the Charlottetown Accord process. A national commission should be appointed to develop a reform package for submission to a referendum so that we, the people who will have to live with and pay for the consequences, can decide. Only approval by Canadian voters can give the federal and provincial governments the democratic legitimacy to amend the constitution to reform the Senate.

January 13, 2010