Let's abolish the senate

Canada, like many democracies, has a bicameral system.  However, unlike most of those other democracies, only one of the houses, the House of Commons, contains members democratically elected by the citizens of this country.  The Senate is populated by political appointees, appointed by the Governor General from a list carefully selected by the prime minister of the day to meet very specific criteria. Unfortunately for the people of Canada, the selection criteria is most often based on how closely the appointees will cling to the party line (as defined by the PM).

I'm currently vacillating between my desire to see the Senate reformed or abolished.  Arguments for keeping the Senate are that, should the Commons attempt something completely batshit crazy, say, passing a bill that blatantly attacks organised labour for no good reason, the Senate is there to offer some sober second thought, and then offer a moderating voice, by proposing amendments that make a mockery of the bill.  What usually happens, however, depends on whether the prime minister's party has a majority in the Senate.  If it does, then the Senate is usually just a rubber stamp for whatever just got hammered through the Commons.  If the opposition has a majority in the Senate, then the Senate will obstruct or slow down legislation just enough to be annoying, but not enough to give the PM justification in wiping them out (although the PM could simply appoint enough Senators to guarantee that a bill will pass, as Brian Mulroney did for the GST). 

What we really find is that the 'sober second thought' that is supposed to be the responsibility of the Senate is actually happening in the courts, as they compare new (and old) legislation to the Constitution and the Charter of Rights.  So on this basis, we could probably do away with 105 unelected politicians, and their staffs, and their perks, and their travel budgets, and so on.

But then who will be left to stand up to the PMO?  In this country, there is a ridiculous amount of power concentrated in the Prime Minister's Office.  If the Prime Minister has a majority in the House of Commons, he can act more or less by fiat, stifling debate, and hammering through an agenda that may bear no relation to his platform in the last election.  The PM could, for example, arbitrarily gut environmental legislation, dump responsibilities to another level of government, push through omnibus bills that effectively re-write massive amounts of legislation, and use his power in the Commons to ensure that the potential effects of the legislation are not even considered.  The Senate, provided it is not simply the Prime Minister's lapdog, has the ability to moderate legislation, and potentially save time in the courts (by ensuring the legislation is sound) or more legislative time by catching impacts of new legislation on existing laws.

In my opinion, senators should not be affiliated with political parties.  This would allow them to review proposed legislation independently of party politics, guided by the direction from the House of Commons, but not blinded by a political agenda.  To do this, power to appoint senators must be taken away from the Prime Minister.  I don't see that senators need necessarily be elected.  A non-partisan selection process could be established, as currently exists for appointments for judges or members of the Order of Canada.  In particular, this would allow an opportunity to ensure representation for groups such as First Nations who might otherwise be underrepresented in parliament.

However, I am realistic enough to acknowlege that only a small minority of Canadians would agree to a change to the selection process that does not involve elections of some sort.  And that means a partisan process, as the political parties compete to see who gets their snout into the trough, regardless of how the elections are scheduled.  I see an elected Senate being just a minor variation on the existing House of Commons, providing no serious 'sober second thought' (even less than currently occurs) but more opportunity for meaningless political grandstanding.

So, I guess I'm for reform if it is meaningful and results in a better system for Canadians, and for abolition otherwise.

Happy birthday, Sea King!

Still in service after 50 years, despite promises to replace them since the Mulroney era!

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2013/07/30/f-sea-king-timeline.html

Legalise Mary Jane

This week, Justin Trudeau came out in favour of legalising pot.  I think I can support his position:  pot is not any more harmful than alcohol or tobacco, and both of those are legally available throughout the country.  Legalising marijuana would allow its production and sale to be subject to vice taxes, as is the case for both smokes and booze.  And it would allow police resources to focus on more serious crimes.  

If we do go ahead and legalise MJ here in Canada, though, I'd like it to be restricted in a way similar to booze:

1.  Limit the sale and consumption to people of 18 years of age or older.  I don't want my kid smoking (and once he's an adult, he'll be able to choose for himself).

2.  Limit the consumption of marijuana to private residences or licensed facilities.  I don't smoke MJ myself, and I don't want my visits to the park (or downtown, or other public places) to be subject to clouds of pot smoke, any more than I want to be exposed to cigarette smoke.

3.  Ban driving or use of heavy machinery whilst under the influence, as with booze.

Popular music

Top of the charts on the day I was born (25 July 1967):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-pFAFsTFTI


Top of the charts on my birthday this year:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyDUC1LUXSU

Even Canada's premiers want First Minister's conferences to resume!

In reference to my earlier rant about First Ministers' Conferences (or rather the surprising absence thereof:  http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/07/25/canada-job-grant_n_3650556.html?utm_hp_ref=canada-politics ), the latest from Niagara-on-the-lake is that Canada's premiers want to have a face-to-face with the Prime Minister!

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/07/25/canada-job-grant_n_3650556.html?utm_hp_ref=canada-politics

Numbered divisions for the army?

Following on yesterday's post, this news release from DND http://www.forces.gc.ca/site/news-nouvelles/news-nouvelles-eng.asp?id=4880  says that Canadian Army Areas will be renamed as "Divisions".  This is another step backwards.  While the story claims that this is a "re-introduction" of the old divisional structure, it isn't really.  The new, numbered divisions bear no relation to the 4 divisions of the WWI CEF or the 5 divisions of the WWII Canadian Army.  Each of the wartime divisions had constituent units representing the whole country, the new divisions are completely regional.  The new nomenclature also reduces clarity - the meaning of "Western Area" or "Maritime Area" is readily apparent to any Canadian; who will suspect that 3rd Division represents the West?

As for preserving or reintroducing historical units, here is an example of how it doesn't even do that:  My former militia regiment is the Calgary Highlanders.  The Highlanders perpetuate the 10th Battalion of the CEF, which was in the 1st Division.  During the Second World War, the Calgary Highlanders were in the Second Division.  The new renaming of Land Force Areas to Divisions places the Calgary Highlanders into the 3rd Division - so how is that a restoration of a historical unit?

Harumph.

New/old insignia for the Canadian Army - what's the point?

Two years ago, the Conservative government restored the titles Royal Canadian Navy, Canadian Army and Royal Canadian Air Force to mixed reaction.  In my opinion, bringing back those names made sense, as the titles are more meaningful than Maritime Force, Land Force and whatever it was they called the folks who flew aircraft.  And sensibly, the restoration of the names does not devolve the RNC, Army and RCAF back into the separate entities that they were before Unification - all three remain components of the Canadian Forces.  More recently, the RCN restored a nice distinction for officers' uniforms by reinstating the executive curl, a fancy loop in the officer's braid.  Looks dashing and gives the sailors a reason to feel important.

And now the changes are going to go even further - the government wants to restore pre-1968 Army rank insignia.  From 1968 to the present, all members of the Canadian Forces used the same system of rank insignia, regardless of whether they served on land, at sea or in the air.  But now the Government wants to go back to a system that last existed before most current members of the Army were even born.  I've not been able to find images of what the new/old insignia will look like, but according to the news report here
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2013/07/08/peter-mackay-canadian-forces-ranks.html

1.  Maple leaves are to be eradicated from officers' rank insignia.  Right now only generals are the only officers with maple leaves in their rank insignia (one for a brigadier, two for a major general, three for a lieutenant general and 4 for a full general).  It's a nice way to add a distinctly Canadian twist to the international tradition of giving generals a number of stars or pips - why not leave our Canadian generals a nice Canadian distinction in their insignia?
2.  Keeping uniform rank insignia across the three services allows instant recognition of who outranks whom.  The forces have been unified since 1968 - why complicate things further?
3.  Enlisted ranks are to be restored to pre-1968 titles and presumably insignia as well.  This seems to me to be a waste of time as well.  Let's keep the insignia as they are, with maple leaves above the hooks for sergeants and master corporals.
4.  The reports say the rank of private will be replaced with guardsman for Guards regiments, rifleman for rifle regiments, sapper for military engineers, trooper for armoured corps and on and on.  These titles are already in informal use, but for official purposes, they are all privates.  Why muck about with changing every soldier's file to show that he is a private when in one unit, but must change to being a rifleman if he changes to a rifle unit or a fusilier or whatever?  These distinct titles can and should be maintained as regimental or corps traditions, but there is no need to add an unnecessary administrative burden by making them formal ranks (really, they are more like appointments - see here for an explanation of the difference between ranks and appointments:  http://canadiansoldiers.com/ranks/rank.htm )
5.  One place where I would see a benefit to restoring an element of the pre-Unification ranks is with the ranks/appointments of Corporal and Master Corporal.  Master Corporals have only been around since 1968, as before then they were known as corporals, the first of the leadership ranks.  Apparently what happened was that privates who had achieved a certain level of technical skill were allowed to become corporals, which led to a need for a distinction between corporals with leadership positions, and corporals who were really more like technical specialists.  The leadership corporals became master corporals.  In my mind, only the soldiers with leadership roles should be called corporals; the other soldiers (privates with advanced skills) should be given another title.
6.  One final thought - in the olden days, there was a distinction between where commissioned officers, warrant officers and enlisted members wore their rank insignia (shoulder/cuff/upper sleeve).  With current operational uniforms, rank insignia is typically worn in the same location on the uniform - usually on a slip-on badge located above the soldier's sternum.  I can see immediately that is likely to be confusion between warrant officers and majors - in the old system, both of these soldiers' insignia consisted of a crown, but confusion was averted due to the placement of the insignia.  That will no longer be the case if both have to wear their crown insignia in the same location.

But then, as with every other decision made by the current government, they didn't ask my opinion.