Senate Restructuring - Change Required

We need good governance in Canada, we do okay, but we need to do better. I am a little tired of watching the senate “scandal”, the “nitpicking” and then the “public debate”.  The senator spending issue is the most colossal of red herrings, we are screaming about senator spending – when the entire senate expenditure is going toward a nebulous mandate, at best, individual senators have “their issue” that they advocate for, or the senate becomes an undignified second to the commons, or worse of all, the senate is just a rubber stamp. The senate, as it presently stands, needs reform. I shudder at the thought of constitutional reform, firstly, it is cumbersome in the extreme, secondly, it is expensive in the extreme and thirdly, it is unnecessary.  The senate is the only means by which to practically reform the senate.  The senate has the structural clout to insist on reform from the commons, there only needs to be leadership and a direction taken. Reform needs to define the function and alter functionality from selection through to governance contribution.

There should be a multi-party selection process introduced and made up of a cross-section of Canadians. The goal is to person the senate with people unaffected by the highly partisan world of politics.  We need to mitigate the reality that now exists, that has the senate more or less an extension of the political process.  What is particularly pernicious about the present circumstance is that the senate often exercises its obstructive capacities in opposition to the elected government – for the Senate to be democratic, the senate can be appointed it just should never be exercising itself in breach of the Canadian Electorates desires. 

  

While is at the leave of the Prime Minister presently to select Senators, it is normally done with considerable consultation. It is clear in the selection of the people that partisanship is at play and the rationales for selection range from patronage to recognition for one accomplishment or another.  There are the means for the Prime Minister to put in place a selection committee, and the means once this chosen course of action is in place, for the senate to enforce the continuance of the process.  No constitutional change is needed, only that, the selection process sees to the constitutional requirement for regional representation.

In defining functionality the senate must enter into an internal process, and define its function. Having defined its function, the senate would need to institutionalize its perpetual actuation in the context of the function. An ancillary codification of some sort would be required; what form this might take would fall out of the internal senate process. One imagines that a directive generated through the body offering instruction as to actuation under the defined functionality would suffice. Over time, tradition would take hold, as has been the case hitherto, whereby, it is tradition to be consistent with the elected commons – or as termed – a rubber stamp.

The senate has the power to do this, the Prime Minister and the Commons are likely to want to co-operate to facilitate change and, perhaps most importantly, the Senate can compel future governments to be congruent with change by exercising their ability to approve or disapprove legislation. What is required is Senate leadership, for people there to break with the status quo and make the changes. The Senate as it now stands is offering limited contribution relative potential. Recent events have made a mockery of the institution – there should never be a point where the most “senior” house in the country is being brought up on the carpet for discourse on expense accounts – change is required. 

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Senate Reform 

Senate Solution

Senate Solution or Solution for Senate

This comment is offered in the spirit of improvement of an awful system called democracy, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, democracy is an awful system - it is just better than all the rest. Democracy, perceived to be the most accountable form of government, has embedded in it a paradoxical obstruction to accountability.  Democracy is confrontational and competitive, in this reality lives a circumstance that prevents accountability from occurring; clean, clear, consistent, long term and thorough analyses of policy are nearly non-existent in modern government, non-existent because the reporting of this type of analysis can cost leadership its job. There is as much, perhaps more, effort spent on obfuscation than on clear communication related to predicted outcome and the actual outcome. This reality is an inherent flaw in our system, this phenomena’s presence is as old as humanity itself, the good news is we can minimize it.

In business we have a “dashboard” to guide use, firstly, there is always the bottom line as a gross measure of performance – there is just no hiding from that. Secondly, in business, we have key metrics and accompanying indicators that we use to measure performance. We also benchmark our performance relative to the norm or our peers, indicators like market share, gross margin, internal rate of return, return on assets – a nearly endless list of ratios and measures are used to ensure our decision making is taking us on the right path. The quality of a decision can only be assessed if it is measured, if you can’t measure you can’t manage it. We need a dashboard for the Canadian public, so they have an objective measure of governance; presently we have no clear dashboard or clear communication of governmental performance.  

Every piece of legislation passed into law should be accompanied by a clear statement of the intended outcome, a clear set of metrics it is to function by and a clear set of indicators for the public to watch. The challenge is that the governance of a country like Canada is very complex, by way of example, the effects of marginal tax changes are very subtle – any two economists, even in an objective circumstance, may make a different assessment of the effect of a marginal change in a given tax. Due to this complexity, the average Canadian, busied by family, work and hopefully a little play; is absent the capacity to assess the full breadth of the government’s activities. Given this reality, the task needs to be delegated to an entity within the government that is above the fray and apart from politics.  Another paradox exists here, in order to have an unfettered flow of information to Canadians that is accurate; the entity we charge with the task of delivering this information must be isolated from the political process and the ire of the public that often finds expression in the political process.  The Bank of Canada is an entity that is at arm’s length from the political process, has a clear mandate, is personnel by appointment – that offers benefit to the Canadian public is very clear.  We need an objective assessment of government actions, we are absent objective assessment now, and most of the time, we are absent the knowledge of whether the government has done what it says it has done.

We have an appointed body now, the senate, which is espoused by the government to be the “house of sober second thought”. The challenge we face is that we have loaded it will partisanship and regional concern. Within the present constitutional configuration and just by changing the appointment process from the PM to a peer-driven process, narrowing the mandate by agreement of parties and overtly effecting a dominant NATIONAL imperative in the mission and culture of the senate, we can transition the senate form a rubber stamp, to the monitor of government action. This would give a meaningful role for the senate to play, one that is presently painfully wanting in government.  

The House of Commons can take care of regional concerns. The senate, through peer selection, can select people that “fill the regional requirement” and that hold Canada as the first concern. A person from PEI can effectively address and hold concern for British Columbian interests, particularly when the mission is narrowed to the assessment of policy relative to what it was promised to do.

The Senate Solution or Solution for Senate.

This comment is offered in the spirit of improvement of an awful system called democracy that is to paraphrase Winston Churchill, democracy is an awful system - it is just better than all the rest. Democracy, perceived to be the most accountable form of government, has embedded in it a paradoxical obstruction to accountability.  Democracy is confrontational and competitive, in this reality lives a circumstance that prevents accountability to occur; clean, clear, consist, long term and thorough analysis of policy is nearly non-existent in modern government, non-existent because the reporting of this type of analysis can cost leadership its job. There is as much, perhaps more, effort spent on obfuscation than of clear communication of outcome. This reality is an inherent flaw in our system, this phenomena’s presence is as old as humanity itself, the good news is we can minimize it.

In business we have a “dash board” to guide use, firstly, there is always the bottom line as a gross measure of performance – there is just no hiding from that. Secondly, in business we have key metrics and accompanying indicators that we use to measure performance. We also benchmark our performance relative to the norm or our peers, indicators like market share, gross margin, internal rate of return, return on assets – a nearly endless list ratios and measures are used to ensure our decision making is taking us on the right path. The quality of a decision can only be assessed if it is measured, if you can’t measure you can’t manage it. We need a dashboard for the Canadian public, so they have an objective measure of governance; presently we have no clear dashboard or clear communication of governmental performance.  

Every piece of legislation passed into law should be accompanied with a clear statement of intended outcome, a clear set of metrics it is to function by and a clear set of indicators for the public to watch. The challenge is that governance of a country like Canada is very complex, by way of example, the effects of marginal tax changes are very subtle – any two economists, even in an objective circumstance, may make a different assessment of the effect of a marginal change in a given tax. Due to this complexity, the average Canadian, busied by family, work and hopefully a little play; is absent the capacity to assess the full breadth of the governments’ activities. Given this reality, the task needs to delegated to an entity within government that is above the fray and apart from politics.  Another paradox exists here, in order to have an unfettered flow of information to Canadians that is accurate; the entity we charge with the task of delivering this information must be isolated from the political process and the ire of the public that often finds expression in political process.  The Bank of Canada is an entity that is at arm’s length from the political process, has a clear mandate, is personned by appointment – that offers benefit to the Canadian public is very clear.  We need objective assessment of government actions, we are absent objective assessment now, and most of the time, we are absent the knowledge of whether government has done what is says it has done.

We have an appointed body now, the senate, it is espoused by government to be the “house of sober second thought”. The challenge we face is that we have loaded it will partisanship and regional concern. Within the present constitutional configuration and just by changing appointment process from the PM to a peer driven process, narrowing the mandate by agreement of parties and overtly effecting a dominate NATIONAL imperative in the mission and culture of the senate, we can transition the senate form a rubber stamp, to the monitor of government action. This would give a meaningful role for the senate to play, one that is presently and painfully wanting in government.  

The House of Commons can take care of regional concerns. The senate through peer selection can select people that “fill the regional requirement” and that hold Canada as first concern. A person from PEI can effectively address and hold concern for British Columbian interests, particularly when the mission is narrowed to the assessment of policy relative to what it was promised to do.

Senate Reform - a do it yourself project

Reply to political Representative form June 5, 2013

This is the first in a series of Blogs regarding the senate, see links below. 

There is no realistic means by which to make constitutional changes with respect to the senate. The key for the Senate now, is to work within the box to get out of the box. The senate has considerable “power”, collectively; the senate has the ability to “discipline” the commons and the PMO. The question is how to effect strong enough leadership within the senate to assert its assent from subordinate, to its rightful place as peer. It is supposed to be the third leg of accountability, it has been for a generation inept at fulfilling its mandate. So leave the constitution as is and exercise the senate’s constitutional power as it is now equipped, to gain both stature and to truly be the house of sober second thought.

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The senate is an organ of Canada, in theory; regional concerns should only weigh on deliberations to ensure equity in terms of regional benefits from the federation. The structure, as you point out, is a product of political appeasement and hence flawed. The senate itself is the only entity with the ability to remedy the attachment to regional concern; the senate needs to exercise its influence to become an entity totally administered in a manner that is “a” regional. The senate needs to set aside generalized political concern and focus on being a monitor of legislation. The present structure as per the constitution provisions the senate with the ability withhold approval of legislation, which is all the influence that is required to ensure that legislation is monitored and to ensure the government delivers outcomes as promised. In Canadian governance accountability is grossly under pursued; it’s essential that we find a mechanism by which to force government to account.     

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The challenge with the election of the senators or the present modalities is that it “politicizes” the senate, political interplay is the cause for the recent discredit. If I may call your attention to the Bank of Canada, likely, the most effective government entity we have; an arm lengths relationship with the government, a clearly defined mandate and “a” political. The senate, due to it’s functionality, has the capacity to effect selection modalities as desired. A senator needs to be an individual that is wholly committed to the furtherance of the dominion, that is to say, partisan loyalties need to be isolated from the senate for it to effectively pursue its mandate as  a “house of sober second thought”; the only real way to achieve this it to create a selection process that is free of partisan influence. There are many Canadians that hold no party affiliation, or at least and as the supreme court functions, have an academic understanding of their obligation to objective participation. There is a fine line between democracy and mob rule, presently we elect a dictator who is wholly at the whim of the mob, the senate has the constitutional capital to offer resistance to the mob, as it were, and offer a chamber of pristine assessment. This is offered to promote “objective” assessment of government action as to opposed to diminishing the group sourcing of government direction. The government is adrift with respect to accountability; the senate has the ability to, and must, seek to position itself to fill the cap.

The senate needs to lift itself above the fray. The senate needs to seek to service the interests of the country as a functionary that offers sober second thought. As it needs to be “a” political, it needs to be “a” regional. There needs to be, through strong leadership in the senate, the creation of a pan Canadian cultural imperative. The senate’s calling is higher than the pettiness of partisanship and regional concern, the senate is there to ensure the entity that is Canada remains strong. The two solitudes, or four solitudes, should hold no place in senate deliberation. The solitudes weaken us, we need to act for the whole; the provinces are big enough to take care of themselves. 

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The connection between active political concern and the senate must be eliminated or challenged as aggressively as possible. There may be Privy Council discourse in grave circumstance, the general administration of government needs an objective eye, let the senate fill that role.

There is no realistic means on the horizon to alter the written law related to the senate, institutional inertia has eliminated all possible avenues in this regard, the confluence of senate action under the banner of “Pan Canadian Interest” is the only means by which the senate can offer real and meaningful contribution.  There are no external means for the senate to change, the senate can only change how it uses the law it is given; the senate and only the senate can facilitate the move from lap dog to functionary. 

For More on the Senate - Click Below

Senate Reform 

Restructuring Required

Senate Solution