When I Grow Up, I Want to Be a Canadian Senator

Canadian and American politics have an interesting dynamic. We have incredibly different systems of government that sound similar. Us Canadians look at American elections with a bizarre sense of bewilderment and excitement while Americans, much like the rest of the world, don’t care much about how we do it or even who we really elect. The point I’m trying to make is that we both have something called a Senate and something that resembles a Senate yet the Americans have something that really is a Senate and we have something that resembles a free lunch.

As much as people are criticizing Stephen Harper (which has become our new national pastime) for his Senate appointments, the guy is doing everything by the book. And by book, I mean he grabs a telephone book, opens it to a random page, and puts his finger on a random name, and that person becomes a senator. We do not have an elected Senate in Canada. It’s not that we don’t want one, we’ve just been too busy to get around to creating one. The problem with an elected Senate in Canada is that it is sort of pointless. While the head of state in Canada is Queen Elizabeth and is represented in Canada by the Governor General, this power is only ceremonial since the Prime Minister is the one who makes all the decisions. Essentially, the Governor General should follow the "advice" of the Prime Minister. The Prime Minster is the leader of the House of Commons. This means, if we had an elected Senate with any real teeth, it would remove a great deal of power from the Prime Minister.

This means that we would have to do two things; create an office higher than the Senate or give the Governor General more than just ceremonial powers. The leader of the country cannot command through the lower house when the upper house can easily defeat him time after time. In America, the President is independently elected and given a veto over the Senate. It’s not that the idea of an elected Senate is a bad thing. It really isn’t because not only is expensive to keep the upper house when it is only used for any Prime Minister to make patronage appointments but since we harp on elected democracy so much, we should not have an appointed senate but an elected one.

Another thing is what really qualifies one as a candidate for senator? Do I qualify? Do you have to have a bubbly personality and love long walks on the beach? Do you have to be able to spell really big words in Scrabble? Or is it really that phone book thing I wrote about a couple of paragraphs ago? You might call it corruption, but I think the Illinois governor was on to something when he allegedly tried to sell Sen. Barack Obama’s seat in the U.S. At least there was a criteria there to select the Senate seat: you had to have the most money. I have $37 in Canadian Tire money and about 6000 Wii Points, that should get me at least a position as a mayor of some small mining town in British Columbia.

I know the focus of this rant is the about Canadian politics but since we’re talking about American Senate appointments, what makes Caroline Kennedy the likely candidate to be the Senator for New York? Other than the fact that her family and American politics is synonymous with each other (her father was president) and she is one of Obama’s biggest fans, I don’t get why that should get you a Senate seat. The whole basis of becoming an American Senator is through election. I know these are the rules when a Senator leaves office that the governor can appoint someone to the seat but I don’t see why someone who has never sought out election to the Senate before should get it by asking really nicely. I say give it to Al Franken or the other guy if he loses the election for Minnesota governor. The election was over a month ago and they still can’t figure out who won. Give them both a seat so we don’t have to hear the loser whine about spoiled ballots and how the election was stolen by evil Democratic/Republican lawyers.

Back to Canadian politics…abolish the Senate. it’ll save us money and get rid of a pointless institution that does little work other than spending the time their supposed to be in the Senate vacationing in warmer climates. Or nominate me as a Senator and I’ll forget this entire post was even written.

Montreal News

The snow outside my house has still yet to be cleared and the sidewalks are still skating rinks. It’s been almost a week now. Either the city of Cote-Saint-Luc is trying to save money by hoping that Mother Nature will melt the ice and snow before half the population break a good portion of their bones. Either that or the city has run out of money in their snow budget like the city of Montreal and other surrounding municipalities and are waiting until the new year to use the 2009 funding.

Canadian News

More snow found in British Columbia

Entertainment/Technology News

HDTV is still the biggest scam of the 21st century.