Canada very much needs parliamentary reform, including reform of the senate, but the EEE model is not the way to go.
To see the problems with the EEE model we need only look south. The election of the US senate is hugely expensive, it's equality is brought into question by partisanship and backroom deals, and its effectiveness all to often leads to legislation of any sort failing.
Those three things often lead to to riders being put on unrelated bills in order to get them through. That situation has caused agricultural subsidies to be tacked onto security bills and so on...a situation that has the stench of legislation passing without debate or even fair representation. Attempting to fix our system by adopting a flawed system from elsewhere is no solution at all.
The best Senate model for Canada would be the Australian Senate :idea: ; it is sort of Triple E, but much better, since it allows both Houses of Parliament to remain very powerful, but it prevents deadlocks (this is why simply appointing Senators who have a democratic base won’t work). This is how their Senate works: First a bill is introduced into one house of Parliament, then if it secedes it is introduced in the other House of Parliament, if it passes in that house the bill becomes law, if not, then the bill is sent back to the House which it originated in. Then the Government has a choice try to pass the bill again with reforms, or ditch the bill. This process can go on for a maximum of three trials. On the third time the two house of parliament disagree the Government can either abandon the bill or hold a double dissolution (both houses face and election). Following the election the Government can try to pass the original bill again, if it fails this time then a Joint Sitting is called (both houses vote together, and the number of Senators is always approximately half the members of the House of Representative, their version of the House of Commons). If it succeeds at the joint sitting it becomes low if not the bill is dead, until another Parliament is summoned. Election is the Senate are follows. Every single election, with the expectation of the Double Dissolution, only half the senators are elected (currently there are 12 Senators per-state and I believe 6 per territory and 6 special seats for the aborigines). They are elected by Single Transferable Vote (the BC proportional representation model). And their is party discipline but it is much weaker than our party discipline so Senators are allowed to vote against their party (not too many times because the electorate asks question about why that member is a member of that particular party, if he/she never agrees with the pary), and the Senators are not independent enough make bargains like they do in the United States. The only problem with Australian senate is that it can veto anything, including the budget, and that led to the Constitutional Crisis of 1970s. So one change I would say we make is that the Senate have a 15 day suspensive veto over the Budget and the Throne Speech, so we don't have any problems.
For our Senate could look something like this, I am using the current numbers to calculate the representation.
14 Senators per Province
8 per Territory
8 for the Aboriginals
Total=172 almost half of the House of Commons
7 senators per province, 4 per territory and 4 aboriginal senators Elected by Single Transferable Vote every three years, fixed term unless a double dissolution is called (just like they do in Australia).
On any matter affecting the Aboriginals we could have a double majority clause in the Senate, this would mean that for any bill to pass that directly affects the aboriginals it would require their consent. Maybe even something similar for the French. This way we can get Quebec on side with the Senate reform proposal. Finaly the Commons should be elected by Mixed Member Proportional Repersenatation, the New Zeland/Germany System.
