With the Supreme Court of Canada's recent ruling on the logistics of Senate reform Prime Minister Stephen Harper has nixed the idea. Basically he has proclaimed reform to be too much of a bother to deal with. Given Harper's dislike for having to negotiate its not a surprising stance for him but any prime minister would likely hesitate to move forward given the circumstances. The fact is that Canada is really, really bad at doing constitutional reform. The issue is mainly one of focus: the provinces see any attempt at reforming the constitution to be a chance to leverage their own interests. The reform bloats until eventually someone walks away from the whole mess. We would be better at this if we could keep the discussion to the one issue we actually want to handle. So how do we do that?
Despite the Premier of Saskatchewan stating that not even a referendum would help Senate reform to move forward there is a way that it could. Senate reform remains hugely popular among Canadians. What needs to be done is to leverage that support for reform and use it to counteract the provinces interests in addressing every issue they have with our constitution. You do this by crafting the referendum question in a particular way:
"Do you support the federal and provincial governments entering into negotiations to amend only the sections of the constitution that deal with the Canadian Senate?"
Premiers are not idiots. If 75% of voters in their province don't want them going off-topic they won't. Abolishment would still be hard to do, as it should, but there would be a real chance to negotiate reform. Requiring 7 provinces representing 50% of the population leaves plenty of wiggle room once the fear of another Meech Lake is removed.
Despite the Premier of Saskatchewan stating that not even a referendum would help Senate reform to move forward there is a way that it could. Senate reform remains hugely popular among Canadians. What needs to be done is to leverage that support for reform and use it to counteract the provinces interests in addressing every issue they have with our constitution. You do this by crafting the referendum question in a particular way:
"Do you support the federal and provincial governments entering into negotiations to amend only the sections of the constitution that deal with the Canadian Senate?"
Premiers are not idiots. If 75% of voters in their province don't want them going off-topic they won't. Abolishment would still be hard to do, as it should, but there would be a real chance to negotiate reform. Requiring 7 provinces representing 50% of the population leaves plenty of wiggle room once the fear of another Meech Lake is removed.
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