{"id":275637,"date":"2021-06-16T02:07:14","date_gmt":"2021-06-15T23:07:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/the-quixotic-quest-to-get-elected-senators-into-the-red-chamber\/"},"modified":"2021-06-16T02:07:14","modified_gmt":"2021-06-15T23:07:14","slug":"the-quixotic-quest-to-get-elected-senators-into-the-red-chamber","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/the-quixotic-quest-to-get-elected-senators-into-the-red-chamber\/","title":{"rendered":"#The quixotic quest to get elected senators into the red chamber"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#The quixotic quest to get elected senators into the red chamber<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n Jason Kenney says Alberta will go ahead with a Senate vote this fall. But will the winners be allowed to sit in the upper house\u2014even if a Prime Minister agrees to app<\/a>oint them?\n <\/div>\n
\n The attributes that exclude one from being appointed to Canada\u2019s Senate have been established since 1867: if you\u2019re under 30, or older than 75; if you\u2019re not a Canadian citizen; if you don\u2019t have more than $4,000 of real property; if you do not reside\u00a0in the province in which you\u2019re appointed, you\u2019re out of luck.<\/p>\n

More recently, another potential dealbreaker has come into play: the eligible appointee can not<\/em>\u00a0have won an election to become a senator. Not an election sanctioned by Ottawa, at least, and possibly not one run by a province.<\/p>\n

This October, Alberta intends to hold<\/a> elections for its preferred Senate nominees for the fifth time in its history, having last done so in 2012. In the time since then, the former Harper government set in motion a crushing blow to its own longtime dreams of Senate reforms by getting a Supreme Court reference on the Senate. Far from green-lighting an overhaul, the court advised that most changes the Conservatives envisioned would require near-unanimous constitutional amendments. Among the ideas the high court pooh-poohed was electing members of the Upper House.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe conclude that introducing a process of consultative elections for the nomination of senators would change our Constitution\u2019s architecture, by endowing senators with a popular mandate which is inconsistent with the Senate\u2019s role as a complementary legislative chamber of sober second thought,\u201d the 2014 reference ruling states. \u201cThis would constitute an amendment to the Constitution of Canada in relation to the method of selecting senators.\u201d In other words, federal legislation enacting or enabling elections to pick senators is a big no-no.<\/p>\n

In some interpretations, this also negates any province\u2019s ability to get\u00a0its elected favourites appointed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there is a strong argument that after the Senate Reform Reference (2014) it would be unconstitutional for a Prime Minister to appoint to the Senate someone chosen through a popular election,\u201d says Adam Dodek, dean of the University of Ottawa law school\u2019s common law section\u00a0in an email. He adds that such a pick could face a court challenge, much like the one filed by Toronto lawyer Rocco Galati against the appointment of Federal Court Justice Marc Nadon to the top court in 2013.<\/p>\n

Emmett Macfarlane, a University of Waterloo political scientist and constitutional law expert, says the 2014 Supreme Court ruling is not clear on appointing candidates elected in provincially run votes. <\/b>The court doesn\u2019t address the validity of the appointment of past Senate election winners\u2014including current Alberta members Scott Tannas and Doug Black\u2014and there\u2019s nothing that prevents a province from holding the elections. What the ruling means for whether or not a prime minister can appoint such popular choices is murkier, Macfarlane says: \u201cThis is probably a case where such an appointment in the future is lawful but somewhat against the spirit of the decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

What is clear, according to Macfarlane: a federal system that incorporates elections for senators is contrary to what the Supreme Court set out.\u00a0<\/strong>Enter Erin O\u2019Toole and a video he released Monday. In it, the federal Conservative leader pledges to appoint the Alberta\u2019s Senate election winners. \u201cWe would also encourage more provinces to adopt the Alberta model of holding Senate elections, and if they did, a Conservative government would pay a share of the cost of that election,\u201d O\u2019Toole says in the video<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Macfarlane, who wrote on the Senate reference in his latest book Constitutional Pariah<\/em>, noted the court opinion was explicitly on\u00a0federal legislation, but would likely also apply to O\u2019Toole\u2019s proposal to defray some of the cost of the elections. \u201cIf it\u2019s an announced policy and there\u2019s an attempt at formalizing, such as feds paying or explicitly cooperating with one or more provinces on this, then even if federal legislation isn\u2019t involved I\u2019d argue it\u2019s still contrary to the reference.\u201d<\/p>\n

The federal Conservatives could not be immedia<\/a>tely reached for comment Tuesday. Alberta doesn\u2019t seem fussed by questions of constitutional problems with Senate elections. A spokeswoman for Premier Jason Kenney says the 2014 court reference \u201cdid not address existing provincial laws or processes in holding Senate nominee elections to provide advice to the PM on his recommendations to the [Governor-General<\/a>],\u201d she wrote in an email.<\/p>\n

In the Oct. 18 vote, held in conjunction with Alberta\u2019s municipal elections, there will be candidates running under the Conservative Party of Canada banner, hearkening back to the Reform Party candidates of 1989 and 1998\u00a0<\/b>(in the last couple of Alberta\u2019s Senate votes, people ran\u00a0under the banners of provincial parties). Erika Barootes, a 35-year-old former president of Kenney\u2019s United Conservative Party, has announced she\u2019ll seek to run this time\u00a0as a federal\u00a0Conservative.<\/p>\n

This potential problem all remains academic as long as Justin Trudeau remains Prime Minister, given that he has shown no interest in Senate elections and established his own process to pick senators\u2014one that appears constitutionally copasetic. Until that changes, we won\u2019t know whether Alberta is\u00a0holding multimillion-dollar democratic exercises to create a list of Albertans who are ineligible to become senators.
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