New Game on Senate Reform Set to Begin

 Conservatives determined to reform Senate, Liberals seem determined not to

The governing Conservative Party is set to re-introduce their Senate reform legislation -- pushing, for the time being, for term limits on Senate appointments.

Rumours had recently abounded that the Conservatives and the ever-recalcitrant Liberals had struck a deal on the length of those term limits; the Conservatives had been holding out for eight-year term limits, while the Liberals have been insistent on a longer period, like twelve years.

It's not an altogether unreasonable preference.

Yet reports that the government and the Liberals had reached a deal have turned out to be premature.

Yet the Liberals must know that now that the Conservatives have a plurality in the Senate -- with a majority likely to follow later in the year -- they won't be able to count on a Liberal majority in the Senate to head off the Conservatives' Senate reform legislation.

In short, they know that they will have to oppose this legislation in the House of Commons. The facade of the Liberal Party being in favour of Senate reform won't be able to hold up.

But as Minister for Democratic Reform Steven Fletcher points out, while the Liberal Party is content to live in the past -- they've certainly been more than comfortable with the current form of the Senate, especially when they enjoyed majorities in that house -- this legislation is part of a campaign of rebuilding the Senate for the future.

“Our government does not believe that appointing senators for terms of up to 45 years is consistent with a 21st century democracy,” Fletcher recently said.

Rarely has the case for senate reform been stated so clearly, and with the Liberal Party reevaluating their approach in the face of a Conservative plurality in the Senate, rarely have the sides been so clear.

What Are They Going to Do, Threaten A Coalition?

 Conservatives to campaign on end to political subsidies

When Pierre Poilievre appeared on CTV's Power Play recently, host Tom Clark was notably disappointed when Poilievre mused about the Conservative Party taking on the opposition parties over per-vote political subsidies, then declined to announce they would table legislation in the house.

Clark may be less disappointed today, as Prime Minister Stephen Harper's office has confirmed that the Tories will campaign against per-vote subsidies during the next federal election.

This comes after opposition parties voted to end the privilege for MPs to mail ten percenters outside of their riding.

"The position of our government is clear. If all the parties wish to abolish this particular subsidy for mailings outside of an MP's own riding, of course this party would be delighted to do that. Of course, we would also like to see the $30-million direct tax subsidy to political parties abolished," Harper announced.

Some may recall that it was the Harper government's last move to eliminate the per-vote subsidy that led to the ill-fated Liberal/NDP/Bloc coalition push. But with the coalition effective redudiated by Canadians, one may wonder precisely what the opposition would do about such an arrangement.

Interestingly enough, Tom Flanagan suggests that the per-vote subsidy should be replaced with some measure that would allow the opposition parties to receive a comparable level of funding.

"As much as I applaud that, there would be bound to be a backlash from that," Flanagan predicted. "The media would beat you up for deliberately bankrupting your competition and I think the blowback from that would be pretty intense, so if they are going to do it, they have to find some practical way of replacing at least a substantial portion of the lost revenue."

"It's hard to find an approach that would yield the amount of money that's equal to the subsidies unless you go back to some level of corporate donations or raising the level on individual donations," Flanagan continued. "The other one is a taxpayer check-off system, which is used in the United States."

For his own part, Minister of Democratic Reform Steven Fletcher doesn't seem to think that any replacement of the subsidy is necessary at all.

"We believe that the per-vote subsidy is not necessary, particularly in these tough economic times," Fletcher insisted. "People voluntarily donate to political parties in Canada. That's one of the problems with the per-vote subsidy, is that it's not a voluntary donation."

As Tasha Kheirddin points out, however, abolishing the per-vote subsidy would require the Conservatives to win a majority government.

"If the Conservatives fail to get a majority, this promise will be impossible to keep, as other parties will want to keep riding that public gravy train," Kheirridin writes. "And while this pledge may be a vote getter, it’s hard to see it as the defining issue of a campaign, with so many other things on the table."

Indeed, it seems unlikely that Canadians will grant the Conservative Party a majority government based on a $30 million budget line item.

But as much as the last desperate hold-overs from the pro-coalition crowd (those who have yet to realize the folly of dealing with a regressive separatist party) may hold out hope that Layton and Ignatieff will threaten a coalition again, or even try to pull it off, it's simply incredibly unlikely.


Other bloggers writing about this topic:

Walker Morrow - "Pro-active Voter Apathy. I Like That Strategy."

Chrystal Ocean - "Per-Vote Subsidy is Baaaack!"

The West Wants In

Pandering to Quebec shouldn't be done at expense of rest of Canada

In the wake of population growth in Alberta, BC and Ontario, Democratic Reform Minister of State Steven Fletcher has reportedly prepared legislation that would add up to 32 electoral ridings between those three provinces.

Most Canadians will likely view this as Canada's electoral map simply being re-drawn to reflect population growth -- something necessary in a country using representation by population.

Unfortunately, not all of Canada's political leaders seem entirely enthusiastic about these necessary changes.

"It's clear that when the population increases in a province, there must be a change in the distribution of seats, but we must also maintain a good balance with Quebec," said Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff said. "We cannot play partisan games with this, because it [concerns] national unity of the country."

And indeed it does.

But it's infortunate that Ignatieff, a Liberal leader whose national unity strategy has laudably included Western Canada, doesn't seem to understand that this matter concerns Western Canada's place within confederation as it does Quebec's place.

Some individuals, such as the Bloc Quebecois' Pierre Paquette, predictably either don't understand this, or (more likely) simply doesn't care.

"I'm convinced there will be a public outcry in Quebec over the Conservative proposal," said Paquette. "For us this is a major issue, and I think it shows once again that the Conservatives have crossed out [appealing to voters in] Quebec."

Things are actually rather different. If anything, it shows that the Conservative party isn't willing to pander to voters in Quebec at the expense of other parts of the country.

The felt urgency to do this may be felt significantly less in the future.

As Brian Lee Crowley in recent analysis appearing in the Globe and Mail, Quebec may not necessarily be able to justify disproportional representation in the House of Commons based on its population.

As Crowley notes, Statistics Canada's population projections offers up six different scenarios. But in all of them two thirds of Canada's population will live in Alberta, BC and Ontario by 2031.

Even without decreases in seats in any provinces that experience a decrease in population, the political consequences are obvious.

"It is politically explosive to try to reduce the parliamentary representation of provinces that are losing population relative to the others, and especially so in the case of Quebec. So the Commons in 2031 will count 375 seats; virtually all the increase will go to this new three-province power coalition that will increasingly dominate Canadian politics. A party that could win three quarters of the seats in BC, Alberta and Ontario would have a parliamentary majority without a single seat from any other province."

Considering that the Liberal party tends to maintain strength in Ontario, the Conservative party dominates Alberta and the parties effectively split BC with the NDP, it's unlikely that many majority governments would be born in such a way -- barring, of course, any significant political changes on a province-by-province basis.

These changes may spell bad news indeed for the Bloc Quebecois, as well as posing a new challenge for the province itself.

"Quebec, the province that has driven much of this country's political agenda for the past half century, will go from belle of the political ball to wistful debutante," Crowley notes. "Its ability to win benefits for itself by consistently sending sovereigntists to Ottawa and denying any party a parliamentary majority will be severely reduced. And even if Quebeckers start voting for federalist parties in larger numbers, they will be unable reliably to deliver parliamentary majorities as they did for nearly a century."

Crowley goes on to argue that Quebec's population dilemma stems from woeful fertility, unavourable domestic migration and low international immigration. Furthermore, Crowley insists that this is an unforeseen legacy of Jean Lesage's Quiet Revolution -- the various special deals that Quebec has levied for itself have not only done nothing to maintain the fortunate position Quebec enjoyed prior to the 1950s, but it's done nothing to prevent the reversals of Quebec's fortunes.

Indeed, Crowley seems to imply, the various demands for special treatment within confederation may be responsible for these reversals.

Pandering to a province that is declining in population at the expense of provinces that are growing in population -- particularly in Western Canada -- would be seen as nothing short of a slap in the face of Western Canadians.

Disproportionately apportioning electoral ridings isn't a feasible answer to Quebec's concerns regarding its place in Canada. In the long run, it will only strain national unity. Further jilting the West will not solve such problems.

If anything, the fact that Steven Fletcher deems it necessary to add 32 additional ridings suggests that either the Conservative party plan is disproportionate to the population growth in those provinces, or new ridings aren't being created nearly often enough.