Recent events in the Senate have provoked me to comment. The
thing I find most disconcerting about the events of late, is that in the media
blitz of “scandal” has yet to produce a clear statement of culpability, who did
exactly what. What is really happening is that we have taken what should be a
honourable institution and through oppositional pettiness, reduced it to ruble
in the eyes of the citizenry, most disturbing isn’t that I’m peeved, our young
people are watching – PG 13 please.
There seems to be a mountain of legal interpretation that
has gone uncommented on. Apparently there is a fairly broad degree of “abuse”
with respect to senator defining what home means. Clearly, when someone harkens
from a given region and then their career takes them far and wide, they can
effectively attend to the interests of their home region; regardless of whether
they are “immediately resided” there or not. There is the spirit of the law and
the letter of the law, we need to exercise caution as to whether “rules”
preclude action or contravene the spirit of the law. Living expenses are
granted so that the realities of dual housing that fall out of senate duties
are covered, the durations of inhabitance of a “home” residence really has no significance;
what has significance is whether honourable people have honoured the spirit of
the law and their overall mandate. Rules are for people who are unable to
understand their responsibility in the context of society at large, if you need
rules and guidelines to run your day, you belong in an elementary school as
opposed to a senate.
There is a concept in the world of assessing human actions
known as “fundamental attribution error” whereby, too much weight is given to character
in human action rather than environment. The environment we create for people
does affect their behavior, remuneration patterns, whether we are in a confrontational
setting or not and a multitude of other factors, come to play on how people
conduct themselves. We have been hard on people in our assessment of recent
events in the senate; perhaps we should be examining their environment to see
if they are being “bumped” “out of bounds” do to poor organizational structure.
There has been plenty of criticism of the senate, very little however, has been
constructive.
The role of senate as the “house of sober second thought” is
clearly challenged when the senate effectively functions as a rubber stamp,
when the inhabitants are partisans – often the most partisan of the partisans or
when it is viewed as a patronage plum – offered as a reward rather than as activation
of a functionary. The functionality of the senate, as is our whole political system
at times, is marred by confrontation, often dragging it into the mire of discrediting
political pettiness. It is very difficult to avoid tit for tat confrontations
when partisanship is at play. If we want a house of sober second though, where
policy is given honest assessment at its introduction and post implementation,
then we need to find a means to de-politicize the senate, to have one actuary
in governance that is unscathed by concerns of their own election or another’s.
The single biggest element missing in
governance is accountability, a crisp dash board on government policy and
action being watched diligently on behalf of the Canadian public, yet far enough
from reach that unfettered assessment and frank dialog are possible, the senate
could be such a chamber. We need only to
restructure the selection criteria and processes, effect some cultural imperatives
and systematize & regularize the peer review processes. As for
remuneration, just give the senators a flat rate, and now they are serving a
real function rationalized to the interests of the Canadian public – make it a
flat rate of a million per year. Senators have honourable in front of their
name, when peer review processes determines a senator is less than honourable,
there should be no quarter given – they should just be gone.
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