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Old 07-24-2015, 09:52 AM   #491
Bownesian
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@Slava - I don't know how you can say that.

The conservatives tried a number of soft reform measures:
- telling the provinces they would appoint elected senators. When the provinces didn't elect any, they were forced to appoint some to keep government running because without a constitutional amendment, we need a Senate.
- tried several reform bills that stalled in the minority parliaments and in the Senate (in part because they were unconstitutional)
- on that front, got a reference from the Supreme Court to determine how reform could happen, and ultimately learned that there's pretty much nothing we can do without a significant constitutional amendment
- Now, after trying more in this decade than the decade that preceded it, they have fallen back to their long-held position that "if it can't be reformed, it should be abolished"

And Trudeau has done nothing substantive. He kicked them out of caucus but they continue to be Liberals. His proposal for some kind of nomination committee is laughable because it would boil down to one of two results:
- The committee would be gerrymandered to suggest people the government agrees with politically
- Or, even worse, the senate could become more than a rubber-stamp/technical body where "eminent Canadians" that nobody voted for would start exercising real power with no recourse from voters to punish bad behavior
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