oyaguy said:
Huh? How am I for a totally non-democratic body making the laws in Canada?
Because you seem to want to destroy what little Canadians have in regards to checks and balances, a requirement for a democratic society. If they're not elected, and they have no "real" power, then there's no way to balance the power that the house of commons has. That's not very democratic now, is it?
oyaguy said:
However, the Senate can only delay bills from the House of Commons, for 180 days, and cannot defeat a bill. The Senate also can't initiate money bills, i.e. a budget. I'm also fairly certain that the Senate cannot strike down, or delay money bills{don't quote me on that one}
The senate does indeed have the ability to strike down bills, money or otherwise. If they do not approve, it either goes back to the house of commons for a re-write, or it's quashed. Perhaps you should do a bit more homework before you post these things. Your "meanings and ideas" such as they were, are based on incorrect information. They did not go past me, they were factually incorrect. From www.parl.gc.ca:
"The Senate possesses all of the powers of the House of Commons except that of initiating financial legislation." So, while they cannot initiate any financial legislation, they can sure veto it.
I think where you got confused is the relation of powers between the senate and the house of commons during constitutional amendments. Again, check your information.
oyaguy said:
What I am getting at, is that the real legislative and governing powers, is in the House of Commons, who's members are elected by Canadians. Therefore, electing senators is not nessesary, because they would be elected to posts that don't have real powers.
Where I see the Senate as useful is with things like that report, which called for the legalization of marijuana. Whether anyone here agrees with the reports conclusion, isn't the point. The point is that an elected official, would never publish a report with such a conclusion. To controversial to risk re-election.
Perhaps you should look into Canada's confederation, and the idea of checks and balances, and how they work in a democratic system. I won't bore the majority of people here by reiterating, rather I'll allow you the opportunity to go check it out for yourself. Also, that report never called for the total legalization of pot, and in regards to that post, I won't kill bandwidth, if you (badapple, you reading) want to look at it, go ahead:
http://www.medicalmarihuana.ca/pdfiles/senatesummary.pdf
oyaguy said:
So I propose that we reform the Senate by formalizing its function as a think tank that performs ceremonial duties. How this could be done I suggested earlier of giving each Senator a base salary of $5000.00 for simply being a Senator and showing up for the ceremonial duties. The small amount of money is because being a Senator who only shows up for whatever ceremony, wouldn't be a full-time job. For Senators who choose to treat the Senate as a full-time job, they would get more money and perks for being on X committee, that is looking in to X topic. Whatever, the dollar amounts are not important and can be adjusted as neccessary.
So in effect, you want to abolish the senate as it is today, and create government-funded fraser-institute (or left wing, whatever) think tanks that do, which particular ceremonial duties? I mean, if you turn it in to a think tank, it inherently has no ceremonial duties. You discuss what a wonderful thing the report on pot that the senate did, then you want to take away their money, and only give it back to them if they, complete more reports on say, pot legislation? I'm hoping you see the inherent reduncancy in your statements.
oyaguy said:
Another reform I advocated for the Senate, is to take the Senate away from the Prime Minister as a way for the PM to settle scores and favours. This is a fancy way of saying lets take away some of the PM's powers of patronage. I suggest this could be done by having all Senate appointments passed through Parliament, which is the House of Commons
Ahh... So, for the last 3 federal governments (not including the present one, obviously) we've had a majority liberal government, run by Cretien, who is known for having absolute control over his party. Do you REALLY think that anyone in the house would refuse his Senate appointments? I applaud the idea that we take away some of the PM's patronage powers, but the method you suggest wouldn't work. I'll bet that second E in triple E sure would fix that problem... (Equal, Elected, Effective)
oyaguy said:
The whole point of this post is that Torlyn read my earlier post, but my meaning and ideas went past him, and I have tried to remove anything that might confuse the issue.
I didn't misunderstand you. You kept waffling with your ideas. You state "I think we as Canadians should give up on "reforming" the senate. The triple E senate, is a dumb idea" and yet you do not back up why the triple E senate is a dumb idea, and you continue on in your posts about how you believe the senate should be reformed, and one of the two reforms you want are only solvable by having and elected senate. Hmmm... Which one is it?
T
PS. Mods - I'm wondering if this shouldn't be moved to it's own thread of Senate Reform? We've gotten a litte far afield from the Alberta Election...
EDITED TO ADD PS TO MODS