I thought today’s announcement by the Harper Governmement to fix House of Commons election dates and limit Senators terms to eight years was interesting.
Like everyone and the kitchen sink, I have some opinions on Senate reform. There is no doubt that it badly needs to be refromed, but I’m just not convinced of the whole Triple-E idea. In my opinion, it lacks imagination and is too simplistic an unimaginative. I much more rather like to see a form of Proportional Representation or Party list based on HOC popular vote by province for Senate elections. I believe this would allow Canadians to keep the type of good people in the Senate who would never run in an election – people like Tommy Banks, Frank Maholvlich, Romeo Dallaire, and Thelma Chalifoux – I think Canadian politics would lose a lot of character if that happened. The last thing Ottawa needs is more politicians (maybe Senate by lottery would be a fun idea…? Senate duty?).
Now, keeping this in mind, I agree that term limits are a small step in the right direction for Canada’s Upper House.
Also, I’ll be gone eastward for the next week and a half and am looking forward to some time in Ottawa and Toronto. I’ll be leaving tomorrow morning and sporatically blogging live and on location in central Canada.
Any suggestions on things I should do in my spare time?
I think I’m going to check out the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto.
Oh yeah, GO OILERS! 🙂
