Senate: The House of Sober Reflection

This article by Sarah Barmak discusses the Canadian Upper House called the Senate. The relevance will soon become apparent to Pakistani politics. t

Last fall, an Ipsos-Reid poll reported that two-thirds of Canadians would support a referendum on the future of the Senate, with a majority (52 per cent) favouring reform over outright abolition. Yet despite desire for change, most Canadians don't really know much about the Senate.

Senator McCoy is forming a new section on her website, titled Braintrust, to address the problem.

"We're going through all the reports on the senate and pulling out what we think are significant ones over the last 14 years, so it makes it more accessible to people," McCoy says.

"Among the more recent ones is the Kirby Report on Mental Health Care, put together by a committee. It led to the allotment of $55 million in federal funding to pursue mental health issues. It's the epitome of what the Senate does well. It takes subjects that are somewhat awkward for elected politicians and drills down into them deeply."

The Senate's policy reviews have reckoned with everything from corporate ownership of media and freedom of speech to the historic committee on poverty in 1971, to improving the legislation that created CSIS, according to Peter H. Russell, a professor of political science at the University of Toronto. His new book, Two Cheers for Minority Government: The Evolution of Canadian Parliamentary Democracy, has a chapter on the Senate.