Coming to terms with the Senate

Turning 75 in the Senate used to mean only one thing: retirement.

However, with a new bill to limit Senate terms being discussed, that tradition may soon go the way of the Dodo for new senators.

The current Senate is a mixed bag of almost evenly split Conservatives and Liberals, with a few Progressive Conservatives, Independents and two vacancies.  With Liberals retiring, Prime Minister Stephen Harper could appoint more Conservative senators and tilt the majority in his favour.

Senator Lorna Milne, a Liberal from Toronto whose last day in the Senate is Dec. 10, has been packing up all her belongings and documents for weeks, and still isn't done.

"Everybody knows [the Senate] needs to be dismantled, and replaced and reformed. But, how do we get there?" – Senator Patrick Brazeau

Milne, who will reach the age of 75 on Dec. 13, is being forced to retire from her post due to the mandatory retirement age of senators in the Constitution.

"I'm just happy that we're sending all this stuff somewhere else, so I don't have to take them home," the senator says with a smile and a laugh as she looks around the room.

Every available corner of her office is packed with boxes of documents and reports to be sent to Archives Canada, as the senator accumulated a lot of "junk" in her 14 years of service.

"I was extremely busy.  I put in four 12 to 14 hour days a week when Parliament's sitting.  That's just what it takes."

Senator Lorne Milne, whose last day in Senate is Dec. 10, says she doesn't think Bill S-7 is the right way to reform the Senate.

The dark side

The Senate reform bill, or Bill S-7, proposes to limit a senator's service to one term of only eight years. 

Proponents of the bill, such as Senator Marjory LeBreton, who introduced it, stated in debates that this bill is important to modernize the Senate. "Reducing the tenure of senators is a modest but important measure in making the Senate more legitimate in the eyes of Canadians," she says. 

However, critics of the bill, such as Liberal Senator James Cowan, the leader of the opposition in the Senate, say that simple reform is not the only goal of the bill.

He says that creating term limits would contradict the true purpose of the Senate as being a "totally independent body of review," and that the larger issues with Bill S-7 are that changing term limits are an affront to the Constitution, and could easily lead to an elected Senate.

"If you had eight year terms, and the prime minister appointed only supporters of his own party, got two majority governments, and was in office for eight years, he would be able to appoint every single member of the Senate.  Now, I don't know anybody who thinks that's a good idea."

This is not outside of the realm of possibility, as Canada has had majority governments with prime ministers in office for eight years in the past.

"We're not speculating here," Cowan says.  "We're talking about Prime Minister Mulroney, Prime Minister Trudeau, Prime Minister Chrétien. All of those were in [for eight years]. And they could have appointed the whole Senate."

A stepping stone for a changing opinion

This is not the first time this government has attempted to reform the Senate, as a very similar bill, S-4, was introduced by the Conservatives in 2006.  The bill was ultimately killed by the Liberal majority, but re-introduced in May of this year with only a few minor changes.

The changes made were the eight year term limits, and that the limits would apply to newly appointed senators retroactively from the previous election on Oct. 14, 2008.

Senator Jim Cowan, leader of the opposition in Senate, says that term limits would eliminate Senate's power as a house of sober second thought.

Scott Bennett, a political science professor at Carleton University, stated in an email interview that the Conservatives have been discussing Senate reform for many years, with the conscious goal of creating an elected Senate. 

It would appear, he says, that this is the Conservatives' first step in that direction, which would both show progress and satisfy its core supporters.

Bennett adds that if the Conservatives do eventually create an elected Senate, it may provide some much needed revitalization in the Senate for the Canadian public.

"It will gradually make the Senate of more interest to Canadians, as they will see that it is not just a long term vacation for political veterans," Bennett says.

The bright side

Not everyone in the Senate opposes term limits.

When Prime Minister Harper recently appointed 18 new senators, a condition upon their acceptance was that they be in favour of, and support, Bill S-7 and its eight year term limits, according to Senator Milne.

One of the recently elected senators, and the youngest to be currently sitting, is Senator Patrick Brazeau, a 35-year-old from Quebec.

Brazeau says that the legislation is simply about term limit reform, and would allow for a greater influx of "young blood in the Senate," which would make it less of an archaic institution.

But, the main problem with the Senate is that Canadians know so little about it, and that is what Brazeau hopes will change when the new bill becomes law.

"Everybody knows what the House of Commons does, and people can watch it if they so choose," he says.  "But the Senate has no live feeds or cameras, and so it's a bit more difficult for Canadians to access the verbatim and transcripts of what is being says in the Senate."

While the larger issue of reform is a sizable undertaking, Brazeau says that it is a realizable goal, but that the decision ultimately rests with the Liberal majority in the Senate, who are mostly not supportive of Bill S-7.

"Everybody knows [the Senate] needs to be dismantled, and replaced and reformed. But, how do we get there?"

"Bill S-7 is not the right way to go" – Senator Lorna Milne

The perils of loyalty

After placing her 14 years of public service into boxes, retiring senator Milne is looking forward to some time away from the Red Chamber. 

She support the idea of reforming the upper house, but says that the current Conservative government is going about it all wrong.

"Bill S-7 is not the right way to go," she says. "It doesn't look at electing a Senate, or the balance of power between the two houses.  It is extremely important that if we change the Senate, we have to change the House of Commons."

However, according to Milne, if the eight-year term limits come into effect, a prime minister who stays in power for that length of time would be able to control the Senate.

"In that case, what's the use of having a Senate?  It would simply be a rubber-stamp body for the House of Commons.  Because right now, we have exactly that situation in the Senate with the new senators who were appointed by Stephen Harper, they're loyal to the end," she says. 

"Every Conservative bill that comes through, it's 'Ready, aye, ready sir!'"

How much do you know about the Senate?