Senate of Canada
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The Senate of Canada is part of the Parliament of Canada, along with Head of State and House of Commons. It is unelected and consists of 105 members, appointed by Governor General on advice of Prime Minister and seats are assigned on regional basis. Region of Ontario, Quebec, Maritime Provinces and Western Provinces received 24 seats each, Newfoundland and Labrador got 6 seats and Northwest Territories, Yukon and Nunavut received 1 seat each making it to 105 seats in total. The senate was created when the Parliament of United Kingdom passed the British North America act in 1867 uniting the country into single federation, called the Dominion of Canada. The presiding officer of the Senate is the speaker who is appointed by the Governor General on the advice of Prime Minister and controls the debate in the Senate by calling on senators to speak and maintain standing orders during the senate proceedings. Senate meets on Parliament Hill in Ottawa and it is where the Governor General reads the Speech from the Throne prepared by the Prime minister and his staff. Senates main purpose was to have an old, conservative function where members are at least 30 years old, appointed till the age of 75 and have at least $4000 of equity in land in the province or territory of residence. More over Senate was suppose to provide an equal regional representation which cannot be provided in House of Commons. Senate does not have the power to introduce money bills apart from that, any bills can be introduced in Senate. According to Constitution Act 1982, Senate can delay constitutional amendments for 180 days and even after that if it does not approve it then House of Commons can repass the bill and bypass the Senate as stated in the ratification process of constitution amendment formula but apart from this, approval of both the houses is necessary for any other bill passage. Currently Senate mostly consist of members from rich background who are basically the loyalist of the party in power and on partisan bases gets the seat in senate as a reward for there loyalty. Senators sometimes indulge in social investigations as they have expertise and time and also save enough money as appointment of royal commissions are way more expensive. Senate also reviews the regulations issued by the various government departments. Currently Senate mostly consist of members from rich background who are basically the loyalist of the party in power and on partisan bases gets the seat in senate as a reward for there loyalty. Some senators also acts as lobbyists for business beyond the confines of the senate chamber and even receives payments for those service even though its illegal. Senate is unaffected, if compared to House of Commons and also do not provide the basic function that it was suppose to provide, most importantly the regional representation. Senates changing roles over the year had made people criticize its role and proposed many reforms over the years which will actually make the Senates job more effective and well supported by everyone but most of these reforms have been unsuccessful.
Proposals for reforming the Senate focus on three main areas which are senate seat distribution, method of selecting senators and their powers. Main reforms for senate seat distribution aims for achieving an equal seat distribution that reflects Canadas demography. Such proposals either aim for the continuation of equal regional representation and making it more effective or for an equal provincial representation as adopted by many other countries around the world. It is believed that equal provincial representation will be more effective as we Canadians identify more with provinces than regions and it also provides as a counter balance for the House of Commons which represent population among provinces. But such action mite turn Senate into another House of Commons because then smaller provinces will be underrepresented by small number of senators while big provinces such as Quebec and Ontario will hold a majority. Another question that has been debated for so long is should senators be elected or appointed by provincial government instead of Prime Minister. Some people believe that appointed Senate by provinces can actually help in representing ethnic minorities which is hard to achieve in an elected House of Commons. This way provinces can appoint individuals from an ethnic minority which will create a confidence in the community as the concerns of minorities will be represented in the Senate at least. But mostly people think that an elected Senate will be more effective as first of all it will be chosen by the people, so senators have the responsibility to raise the concerns of individuals who actually supported them, which will be the majority and also it will gain more respect and support of the people. It will also give the Senate more legitimacy. Making Senate an elected body will also increase its powers and in future it may acquire more powers as it will be actively representing the population and will have a popular support of the provinces. So some of the powers currently in House of Commons such as if the party in power looses the confidence vote, it has to call an election will soon be shared with Senate, if it becomes an elected body because then losing
a confidence vote in Senate will mean that majority of population does not support the party in power and an election has to be called and this will also make the attitude of the government more responsible against the Senate as currently Senate is not taken much seriously by the government.
Proposals for Senate reforms date back to 1800s. In 1874, M.P. David Mills introduced a proposal for provincial appointment of Senators in the House of Commons. In 1906, the House of Commons debated a proposal to limit Senators terms to the life of three Parliaments, meaning 12 years. In 1909, the Senate debated and rejected a proposal changing the selection of Senators to a combination of election and appointment. Under this proposal, two-thirds of Senators would be elected and serve seven-year terms and rest will be appointed. In 1927, Senate reform proposals were discussed at the Dominion Provincial conference. But none of these incentives actually proved successful as all of them were rejected and Senate remained unreformed. Then in 1960s once again looking at the need for Senate to actively represent regions, set of reforms were proposed and in 1965, the parliament changed the retirement age of Senators to seventy five years. Then the ratification of Constitution act in 1982 decreased the power of Parliament to make changes to Senate without the approval of the provinces. This made Senate more independent as any changes have to be also approved by the provinces and not just by both houses.
In 1978 a totally new way to amend the Senate was proposed which