As ugly as its ancestor

Canada tried an elected Senate in the 1850s. The Fathers of Confederation got rid of it in 1867.

That original Triple-E -- elected, equal and effective -- upper chamber turned out "not so much Triple-E as Triple-R: rich, rural and reactionary," writes historian and author Christopher Moore.

Its large ridings, long terms of office and substantial property requirements favoured conservative candidates. Not surprisingly, its chief purpose was taming the "rampant democracy" of the lower "rep by pop" chamber, according to its first senator, Philip VanKoughnet.

"Conservative Canadians argued that the lower house, newly empowered by responsible government in 1848, was too democratic, too much under the sway of ordinary people and their representatives," Moore continues in an article in the June/July 2006 issue of The Beaver, Canada's National History Magazine.

The elected Legislative Council of the United Canadas was the product of an unlikely alliance of small-c conservatives determined to protect the rights of property from the vagaries of popular majorities and the Clear Grits, who favoured electing everyone.

A decade sufficed to turn Canada's legislators against a popularly elected, but not democratically accountable, upper chamber.

Moore says it's a myth that the Fathers of Confederation opted for appointed senators because they feared democracy. Quite the contrary.

"They understood that the focus of parliamentary democracy lies in the lower house, the common house, the one elected on the basis of representation by population. They were not looking for a house of the provinces either, for they took steps to disconnect Senate seats from the provinces and they gave the provinces no part in filling them. They did speak of regional representation, but region was a nebulous concept, not a real source of power or authority."

Replace the word "property" with "provinces" today and you're right back to 1856. Many Western Canadians want an elected Senate to restrain the "rampant democracy" of the House of Commons precisely because it is too representative of the Canadian population and thus too controlled by the populous -- and poorer -- regions of Central and Eastern Canada.

Just as those 1850s politicians who feared the rabble would seize their property, today's Senate reformers fear having to share their provincial resource wealth.

The Reform party-inspired thrust for an elected Senate threatens to recreate all the problems bedevilling the original elected upper chamber of 150 years ago and add new, far worse, ones.

Like its ancestor, a future elected Senate would also have large ridings and long terms. Prime Minister Stephen Harper's proposed term-limits legislation calls for eight years. Add constituencies possibly as large as provinces and Senate membership would be as biased towards the wealthy and conservative as it was 150 years ago.

Representing far more people for much longer would also endow senators with much greater power and legitimacy than MPs, whose terms are half as long and whose ridings are much smaller.

Whereas the original elected upper chamber championed property rights, the one envisaged by the Triple-E enthusiasts is designed to champion provincial rights and cripple the government.

Senate reform draws Canadian democracy into a dense thicket.

The upper house cannot be reformed piecemeal, as the Conservatives have been trying to do. It should not be elected unless its representation is altered and its powers curtailed.

The Senate enjoys co-equal legislative authority with the "rep by pop" House of Commons except that it cannot initiate money bills. Giving the Senate democratic legitimacy without trimming its powers makes it, not the Commons, the powerful chamber. That creates a constitutional crisis, because it's the House of Commons that is the confidence chamber, the chamber to whom the government is accountable.

Solomon-like wisdom is required to resolve the issue of provincial representation. American-style equality is out of the question. The U.S. has 50 states while Canada has only 10 provinces and three territories. Major differences in population size loom far larger in a smaller federation. Ontario and Quebec will never agree to have the same number of senators as P.E.I. or Nunavut. On the other hand, B.C. and Alberta will never tolerate having only six senators apiece while Nova Scotia and New Brunswick keep 10 and P.E.I., four.

This representational nightmare caused a long-standing Senate reform champion to reconsider. The Fraser Institute's Gordon Gibson says the Conservatives' "One-E" Senate -- elected in some but not all provinces and with powers and representation unchanged -- would be a "horror show" because it would force the rich provinces ---- primarily Alberta and B.C. -- to "shovel money" to the poor.

"One would have a constitutional monstrosity, with the capacity to provide extremely bad government and put strains on the federation which would possibly lead to its break up," he told a Senate committee in 2006.

The prime minister gave Canadians a Christmas present when he filled all 18 vacancies in the Senate and essentially parked his reform plans.

Frances Russell is a Winnipeg political writer and author.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition January 7, 2009 A11