Quote:
Originally Posted by Agamemnon
Wouldn't it take some sort of constitutional amendment to change the structure and government functions of the Senate? Or can they just amend it however they want through legislation?
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Actually it won't, at least along the current proposal. The idea is to have provinces elect senators in waiting, who are then appointed by the PM. So even though it is for all intents an elected senate, it is still technically appointed by the PM. Assuming it withstands any legal challenges, it's a pretty clever solution.
I'd be very curious to see the national response to this. I seem to recall that when Alberta first elected senators in waiting, there was a huge number of spoiled or blank ballots--something like 40% as a protest of the idea of an elected senate. And even during the most recent election, the spoil rate was 20%. And this is in the province where the notion is supposedly universally endorsed. If senates were elected nationally, we might see a spoiled-ballot rate above 50% nationally.