Alberta PC's sure like to waste our money
- Thread starter gerryh
- Start date
Same ol' same ol'. Doesn't really matter the colour. At least you guys got money to waste out there. I've got customers doing the nickel and dime routine on my rates and the government notching up theirs.
Well, I am in favour of full scale Senate reform, but barring that, Alberta is at least letting the people choose who we nominate and adding as much democracy as we can (without a constitutional ammendment) to one of, if not our most undemocratic institution. Given that Harper does live in Calgary (when not in the official PM's residence), and given his past stances on Senate reform, I can't see him refusing to nominate the choice of the people, or even threatening to refuse to respect the choice of the people of Alberta... unlike the posturing of a former Liberal PM...
The last set of "elected" senators were ignored by Harper. It's a waste of time and money. Until there is Constitutional change to reform the senate, why have the elections and cause added problems between Alberta and the feds?
I'm not, I think that's a VERY bad idea. The thing to do with the Senate is abolish it, or leave it alone, not reform it. Constitutionally, the Senate has power equal to the House of Commons in most respects, it can veto almost anything that comes to it from the House, and the only reason it doesn't is because it's unelected, it's perceived as not having the legitimate democratic right to do that. Electing Senators would give them a political legitimacy they don't currently have. You want to lock Parliament into a chronic dance of obstruction and checkmate, constipate the whole process with checks and balances as we see in the great republic to the south, elect the Senate. BAD idea.
I'm leaning to it being a round robin thing for anybody drawing a fat govt pension check, done at such a rate as nobody could load the deck. Give each of them some university students that are taking political courses so when they enter the political areana they know what they can't get away with and any member caught while in office is going to be a real prick to deal with when they do their time in the Senate.
