Harper to table bill on Senate reform

[Aaron]

I'm not sure how much further we can take this... I'm still all for an elected Senate. Countries who have them, both in Presidential and Parliamentary Systems still manage to be productive.

I should add, though, that unless we are willing to discuss electoral reform, at least when it comes to the Senate, I would fall back to your all-party committee. A Senate elected by FPTP would stall progress on Parliament Hill. If both chambers were controlled by the same party, there would be no effective opposition. If both were controlled by different parties, we would no doubt see some sort of stalemate at some point.

IMO, the success of an elected Senate would depend on a reformed electoral system (at least for that chamber, if not the Commons). First, breaking party discipline would be essential for Parliament to be productive. This would most effectively be achieved through Single Transferable Vote, which happens to be what Australia's elected Parliamentary Senate uses. Australia also uses fixed election dates to limit the effect of elections on the Senate.

About the all-party committee, I doubt we would see a change in the trend of Senate appointments during majority governments. Committees are generally formed to roughly represent the composition of the House. Many Committees presently active consist of 5 or 6 Tories, 4 or 5 Liberals, 2 Bloc MPs, and 1 or 2 New Democrats. The Chair of each Committee is an MP from the governing party as convention dictates. Unless you are suggesting a committee made up of equal representation between parties, I don't see how this would change anything, except make the process longer. Could you clarify a bit?

 

[MizuRyuu]

i want to have some kind of reform for the senate too... but the problem is any dramatic changes would require constitutional changes.... and that would require agreement by all provinces involved.... the chance of ANY government able to coming up with a reform agreeable to all province is nil.......

I prefer the STV system too.... but I don't see how that would break party discipline.... The only thing it will change is the composition of the common and the senate..... it wouldn't change the basically forced loyalty of the party member to the party leader......

I can see the benefit of a fixed election date... to clarify, are you suggesting only a set election date, or are you also suggestion a set date for the dissolution of parliament??? .... if there is a set dissolution date, the opposition can take advantage of the fact by dragging out debate on bills so that they are killed with the calling of an election......

for the all-party committee, I believe that an equal amount of representatives must come from all party that has above a certain amount of seats.... this is to make it so all party have equal inputs and parties with one seats would not be able to stall the process.....yes, the process would probably take longer, but it would be fairer.... and it won't be constantly stalled, as all committee member know they have to compromise if they want support for their own candidates.....

 

[Aaron]

I prefer the STV system too.... but I don't see how that would break party discipline.... The only thing it will change is the composition of the common and the senate..... it wouldn't change the basically forced loyalty of the party member to the party leader......

STV is actually the most effective system when it comes to breaking party discipline. STV strengthens the link between voters and candidates, and forces candidates to appeal directly to the voters on an individual basis, without depending on a party platform as much as they do with SMP. With STV, voters would feel personally connected to their representatives. In almost every case, each voter will have helped elect at least one of the representatives for their riding. On top of that, this means that in almost every case, each voter will be able to access a representative of similar political beliefs and alignment.

Candidates wouldn't be competing against other parties in an election, they would be competing against every candidate on the ballot, including those in their own party. Voters could spread the votes across party lines forcing candidates to be appealing on their own, and the thought is that this would occur quite frequently. (Personally, in the last federal election, if we had had STV, I would have voted 1 for a Liberal candidate, and 2 for James Moore, a Tory.) Since STV seeks to mirror electoral support for candidates, rather than parties as List PR or MMP do, party afiliation would decline in importance.

Once in the Commons/Legislature/what-have-you, Candidates would have to continue to make choices that their constituents would appreciate. A candidate who voted with their party and against the wishes of his constituents would be punished in the next election. There is the possibility that we would see a similar practice to what happens in the US develop: the voting records of representatives would become very important. A representative who votes in accordance with the wishes of his constituents would be popular in the riding.

STV wouldn't abolish party discpline, but it would weaken it considerably.

I can see the benefit of a fixed election date... to clarify, are you suggesting only a set election date, or are you also suggestion a set date for the dissolution of parliament??? .... if there is a set dissolution date, the opposition can take advantage of the fact by dragging out debate on bills so that they are killed with the calling of an election......

I was suggesting a fixed election date. A fixed dissolution date hadn't occured to me.

for the all-party committee, I believe that an equal amount of representatives must come from all party that has above a certain amount of seats.... this is to make it so all party have equal inputs and parties with one seats would not be able to stall the process.....yes, the process would probably take longer, but it would be fairer.... and it won't be constantly stalled, as all committee member know they have to compromise if they want support for their own candidates.....

And here is the problem with an all-party committee. I pointed out before how nothing would change if the committees were formed how they are now. If each party got equal representation, some would wonder why a party with, say, 10% of the vote deserves the same say as a party winning 45% of the vote.

 

[MizuRyuu]

i agree with most of what you said.... but with the current system, the party leaders have final say in who can represent a riding.... if any party member do not vote along party lines most of the time and during important votes, they can be denied party endorsement...... while this wouldn't exactly rule out a candidate from winning like in the US, it would be a severe blow to such candidates......

the whole point of equal represenation would be for equality.... otherwise, as you said, there is not point as a party with a majority in the common would be able to push their desired candidate through the committee if they chose...

the smaller parties should have the same say for both equality and also because they represent the wishes of 10% of the population, which isn't a small thing..... and also, my rules that a certain amount of party MP is needed before seats on the committee is granted would help weed out the smaller parties that may get one or two seats, such as the Green....

 

[Aaron]

and also, my rules that a certain amount of party MP is needed before seats on the committee is granted would help weed out the smaller parties that may get one or two seats, such as the Green....

A seat quota... that makes more sense.