Last Few Bits

This week has been a tremendous learning opportunity about our Canadian system of parliamentary democracy. I'll be talking to you when I get back, and thought I'd leave you with some brief facts that you may not know:
1. The Senate is not a second chamber to the House of Commons. It is it's own separate entity that is related to, but has a very specific and different purpose: second and thoughtful scrutiny on legislative bills coming from the lower house (HOC), and to provide a non-elected body of senators who represent their respective regions in Canada. There's been a lot of talk about Senate reform, in fact the first Senate reform was proposed just shortly after Confederation in 1867! After meeting with a panel of prominent senators this week, I believe that it's a necessary body to ensure our democracy is fully effective. The only reform I would consider (and some of the senators have) is to change the proportion of representation to better reflect the population distribution in Canada; in other words, to better represent the western provinces. One other reform has been put forth by the Conservatives, and that is to change the tenure of the Senators from 30 years old to 75 years old, to an 8 year term. We need Senators to provide long-term thoughtful input when government can change every four (or fewer, as we now know) years. Senators who have been serving through two governments can provide the context for legislation that may be amended in the years following one government to another. The Senate is much less partisan than the House of Commons.
2. The Queen is our symbolic Head of State, but the Governor General is our true head of state.
When the Queen is here in Canada, she is known as the Sovereign of Canada.
3. There is no mention of the office or position of prime minister in our constitution.
4. The role of our Governor General has remained fully untested, until Her Honour prorogued the sitting of parliament this fall. There have been only three "crises" including the King-Byng affair, in which the then G.G. refused Prime Minister King a dissolution of the house in order to go to election within a year of his election. Byng felt that would lead to instability in government.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Meeting the real faces behind the government and the other institutions of our parliamentary democracy has been a privilege and tremendous learning experience that I'll be sharing with our staff and students in order to promote civic engagement.