Scrap the Senate

MFL president presents brief on senate reform to to Manitoba Legislature sub-committee.

On Saturday, February 21, MFL President Darlene Dziewit made a presentation to the sub-committee of the Manitoba Legislature that's hearing input on senate reform. Her message was straight forward - abolish the senate.

The democratically elected House of Commons is, or should be, the supreme governing body in Canada without being second-guessed by an appointed or elected Upper House. Members of Parliament are elected by all Canadians. They represent all of us. They speak for all of us.

Senators are appointed. The roots of the Senate stretch back to the British House of Lords, a body put in place to protect the interests of royalty and the wealthy British upper-class from the House of Commons, a body populated by representatives of ordinary people. It existed to ensure laws and policies put in place to benefit the population at large didn't adversely impact on their powerful and entitled lives.

If there are problems with the current political process in Canada, then fix the process by reforming the House of Commons. A good starting point would be to move away from the first-past-the-post style of electing our representatives and adopting an appropriate form of proportional representation so that Canada's diverse political landscape is accurately reflected in the House of Commons.

In her brief to the sub-committee, the MFL President outlined other reasons why the senate should be abolished. If the Manitoba should choose not to follow that advice, she offered some suggestions that should be made to the senate and who should serve in it. The full brief is available for download in PDF format (Three pages, 97kb).