Question seven of the Alberta Referendum isn’t asking Albertans if they want to do away with the federal senate, but if they support the Government of Alberta working with the governments of other willing provinces to amend the Canadian Constitution to abolish the unelected federal senate.
“You don’t need a referendum question to do that,” said Senator Paula Simons representing Alberta. “Any Alberta premier has been welcome to do that at any point in history, the problem is that other provinces feel quite protective of the senate.
“Certainly for the Atlantic provinces - for Newfoundland with six senators, for P.E.I. with four senators, for Nova Scotia and New Brunswick with 10 senators each - to make the case to them to abolish the senate would be a challenge.”
Simons was appointed to the Senate in October 2018.
The former Alberta journalist says the Senate’s job is to be a second set of eyes on federal government legislation and is modeled on the House of Lords in Great Britain, the Senate in the United States and the Roman Senate.
“The idea was to provide a long term perspective,” she said. “That’s why senators aren’t elected, we’re not subject to election cycles and popular pressure so the premise is that every piece of legislation gets a once over from us, we are there to represent regional interests, that’s why we’re we are appointed from provinces so we are very much there to protect provincial rights, but we are also there to protect people’s constitutional rights.”
Jeremy Webber, University of Victoria dean of law, is an expert in Constitutional law and reform says having 10 questions on a referendum can muddy the waters for voters.
“This such a complex list of questions dealing with so many different areas, some of which are going to be heavily discussed, other of which may not even be touched on,” he said. “What’s the status of the result that one is going to obtain from this pretty substantial, pretty costly process of public consultation.”
In terms of question seven regarding the senate, Webber says it’s time for reform.
“I actually have never been a fan of the current Canadian senate, it strikes me that it is really a poorly designed institution for a democracy, it is really in no material way representative,” he said.
“But it’s interesting that the current Alberta government is gravitating towards abolition, that frankly used to be the position of the left in Canadian politics, the traditional NDP position was that the Senate should be abolished.”
Webber says Albertans of a certain age know more than anyone else that the Senate has been a perennial topic of discussion and while many agree the current iteration is not well structured, the trouble lies on a national level of what that proper structure would be.
“It just seems to me that we’ve just got so many balls in the air here that I wonder whether one’s going to get the kind of crisp decision that really referendums are designed to provide,” he said. “These kinds of consultations can be an important part of the democratic process or they can be frankly, a bit of a dog’s breakfast.”
Elected senator ran on anti-Senate campaign
Scott Tannas began his Senate career when he was appointed in March 2013.
But the High River resident is the only current senator and the fifth in Parliament’s history whose appointment came as the result of a public election where he received 349,346 votes by Albertans.
“I take all the (referendum) questions seriously,” he said. “And I think lots of people do but it’s a lot of questions to ask a busy Alberta citizen who has a lot of things on their mind besides the inner workings of government.”
Tannas’ campaign platform in 2013 was by his own account unusual, saying the Senate is useless, it needs reform or it should be abolished.
“What I didn’t realize and what most Canadians wouldn’t realize today even, is the depth in which the Senate does studies on issues and reports that many times form government legislation,” he said.
“There’s no question the Senate is full of accomplished people from all walks of life that are there with the right intentions to be helpful, they’ve been successful in their own endeavors and they are there to serve the country.”
Tannas says the Senate has entered a whole new era by improving productivity going from zero legislation input to successfully amending roughly 30 per cent of government bills that come before it.
He encourages Alberta voters to spend a minute learning about their senators and who they are before they vote on Oct. 19.
“It’s a question for me that I think is worth asking and hopefully it informs the Alberta government on how to force more improvements in the Senate,” he said.
“I don’t believe for a second that the Alberta government will be successful in enlisting unanimity, which is what would be required so it would be another quixotic move to go from ‘we demand a Triple E senate, to we demand abolishment’, neither of which will ever happen.”
