Too much power to the provinces

[Hank C]

Re: RE: Too much power to the provinces

No one wants provinces to have equal representation
in an upper house ?

I would have absolutely no problem with equal representation in the senate....rep by pop would be better for the lower house though

 

[Hank C]

I just cant understand why it would be soo unfair. New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, PEI and Newfoundland have a combined population of what, barely over 2 million. Thats not even the population of Alberta, but they have 30 seats. Now combine Alberta and BC which together have a population between 7-8 million, yet we only have 12 seats???? Hell Newfoundland dosent even have half a million people yet they have as many seats as Alberta??? The way I see it the system is seriously flawed.

But having said that I will admit that since I have only been living in Canada for a few years, I am not well informed on why the senate is formed this way. Anyone care to explain it to me????

 

[Jay]

This is a good read.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Senate

 

[jimmoyer]

Informative link.

The mostly powerless Senate already gives equal
seats to each province. And Quebec and Ontario
have mostly opposed any plan to give the Senate
equal standing to the House of Commons.

Looks like Hank C's complaint is about unexplained
proportional population representation in the House
of Commons.

By why not give the Senate real power equal to
the House ?

Then provinces would have real equality at least
in the upper chamber.

 

[FiveParadox]

Provinces would not have "equality" in the Upper House, even if the powers of the Senate were exercised to their maximum extent (in theory, the Senate at the moment is more-or-less equal to the House of Commons — their powers are simply rarely exercised); the provinces do not have the same number of representatives in the Red Chamber, therefore they would not be "equal".

 

[Hank C]

So basically what happend was that they decided to divide the country up into 4 regions (Ontario,Quebec,West,Maritimes) and give them equal senate seats, 24 each. So back then was it representative of the population, did Ontario and Quebec have equal population, did the Maritimes have equal population with the West? or was is flawed from the start? Was Newfoundland offered 6 senate seats as an incentive to join Canada?

 

[FiveParadox]

Hank C, when Confederation was created with the British North America Act in 1867, it was intended for the House of Commons to represent the population, and for the Senate to represent the regions of the nation (hence the "twenty-four Senators per region" strategy).

 

[bluealberta]

Re: RE: Too much power to the provinces

I'm glad we agree here, because I meet very few people who do.

I blame Liberals and the like.

The whole separation issue would go away if the Liberal view of Federalism just went away IMO.

Jay, you got my support as well. There are certain powers allocatted to the provinces, but over time, especially since 1968, the feds have intruded into these areas of jurisdiction. The provinces, in my opinion, know much better how to deal with their own citizens than a centralized government in Ottawa does. I fully support Harper in his efforts to get Ottawa out of the business of the provinces.