Friday, November 06, 2009

Senate Reform Proposal - Just for Fun...

Here's a Senate reform proposal - doubtless an unworkable one for many reasons. But I'm feeling perky today. I'll make a proposal, and you, my small cohort of readers, can pick it apart and improve it, because what else are you going to do on a Friday.

The EEEP! Senate (a variant on the Reform Party's Triple-E Senate)

110 Senators total
"E"qual representation - 10 from each province, 1 per territory, 7 "floaters"
"E"lected to serve 8 year terms
"E"ffective, and can alter/send back to the House all non-financial legislation
"P"roportional representation by province. 10% of the vote in a province gets you a Senator. The 7 floating seats are allocated to make the national total of Senators more closely reflect to the national PR vote.

Tear it apart, kids!

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2 Comments:

At 3:38 pm, Anonymous Mark S. said...

I propose a Senate reform based on ancient Athens:

We draw 105 random names from the voters' list (perhaps with stipulations based on region, gender, etc.). These 105 people then become senators, representing Canadians from all walks of life.

 
At 5:41 pm, Anonymous Maurice said...

Personally I'm not sure I'm crazy with the idea of 122,000 PEIers getting 10 senators just like 13,000,0000 Ontarians get 10 senators, too. I'd be more inclined to favour a scheme whereby equality is directly proportional to a province's population, with perhaps a floor (as is the case for the Commons for Quebec and PEI) that would prevent a province from having fewer than n senators. Or, if that's too much like what the Commons is supposed to be like, then maybe a smaller (than 10) but equal number of senators per province but more regional/general senators (?).

 

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