While senate reputations are on the line these days, being a Senator used to be quite popular. Some people might remember the great baseball teams of the old Washington Senators. That franchise was well respected and very competitive until things started to change in the U.S. capital and the team moved away to Minnesota. When the baseball team was restarted in Washington, it was the old Montreal Expos who moved south to Washington and became the Nationals. Strange name for a baseball team but they obviously did not want to be called Senators again. Now the Nationals are considered one of the best teams in Major League Baseball and are World Series contenders this year.
Hockey pundits in this country will probably agree that being an Ottawa Senator these days is no great thing. While the hockey team is popular in our nation’s capital, given the goings-on on Parliament Hill these days, they probably would like to rename the hockey team to something less political. How the Senate Scandal plays out is an ongoing soap opera and a dark part of modern Canadian history.
It used to be that being a Senator represented the highest achievement in community service and a privilege of life in Canada. To be named to the Senate was an honour and based on great achievements in your community and province. This was an opportunity to serve the entire nation in a wonderful new capacity and the honour could only be bestowed upon worthy candidates by the Prime Minister. It usually came later in life, which is why the mandatory retirement age was set at 75 years, instead of the old 65 for most working people. It was not expected then that such young people as we have today would be sitting in the Senate. A Senate appointment was to be a final honour or pinnacle of success. My how things have changed!
Senators have become political party “hacks” instead of statesmen. Appointments are made by the political parties to ensure a majority in the Upper House in order that legislation be hurried through with little changes to legislation of the government of the day in the House of Commons. So much for the Senate being a place of sober second thought to ensure the legislation met all legal ramifications and was a benefit to the people of Canada – not to the party in power. A little bit idealistic in today’s world of negative politics. Successive Prime Ministers seem to have appointed people of all ages and genders mostly for political party reasons, and not always based on merit. That strategy seems to have backfired in spades as the house is now a mess and really needs fixing. There has been so much Senate controversy under the current Prime Minister that people seem to have forgotten Prime Minster Harper was first elected on a platform of Senate reform. Now we have a number of Senators being investigated by the police and involved in court cases. Probably not the type of reform first envisaged.
What is really bothersome these days is that some Senators are claiming to be sitting as “Independents” now that they have been thrown to the wolves by the parties who so proudly appointed them. How does that work? The party should not have the right to pretend there is no longer a connection and should there not be new legislation brought in to prevent this? But as long as the major media keeps referring to those Senators under suspicion or review as Independents, the system will never change. And remember there are a lot of perks that go with that job, besides a huge salary. Perhaps the best solution is that all Senators be appointed as Independents from the start and therefore are not beholding to any political party while they do the work of the Upper House. There are a lot of vacancies right now in the Senate and there could be a few more before the upcoming federal election. History has been that the Prime Minister makes a number of appointments immediately before the election or right after the results are in, thus keeping the current way of political patronage alive. It will be very interesting to see what Mr. Harper does later this year.