Persiana Persiana:
In my political history courses that I took, one trend became glaringly obvious, long periods of liberal power, (usually 12 to 16 years at a time) briefly interrupted by "blips" of some other party.
With more recent events however, (the money laundering, the lack of anybody willing to take a position of leadership of the Liberal party, etc) I can't help but wonder if these years are a key turning point in Canada's political history. (Tomorrow's history, if you will)
Is this the end of long liberal power & blips of other parties, or do you think we'll see the liberals return after Harper?
I read an interesting thing in the newspaper the other day that Harper is addressing the issue of our joke of a Senate. He's trying to make it election based rather than appointed, and set a maximum length of time that one can be on the Senate for. I think its brilliant, but many may disagree... and even more (sadly enough) may not understand its implications, having previously being not all that aware that we even had a Senate.
I don't think there has been a Canadian Government that hasn't been defined by some scandal. What distinguishes the Chretien-Martin era is the sheer volume of scandals. In regard to their earlier malfeances, the Sponsorship Scandal is much less significant. Yet, the Canadian electorate seems to have an especially short memory when it comes to political misdeeds. Prove this to yourself by asking an aquaintance (or even a stranger) what the central issues were in
"Shawinagate" or the
"HRDC Boondoggle". The Conservatives do not seem to have any intent for being the antidote to Liberal corruption. They've already enacted an
"Accountability Bill" which makes it easier for a government to hide it's actions from governmental oversight and public view. And they've basically dropped the ball on punishing any of the central players in the Sponsorship Scandal (there seems to be an unspoken covenant that if the Cons don't punish the Libs for their past crimes, the Libs will extend the courtesy to the Cons, should the Libs form a near future Government).
As for an elected Senate: that has the possibiliy for becoming an even sadder joke than what the present format has created. We already have an elected body (the House Of Commons) who's interests are determined by special interest groups and corporate lobbyists, and which the electorate has no effective control over between elections. The Upper House should serve as a counterpoint to this form of corrupted democracy. I would suggest that Senatorial term limits are a good idea, but that electon by small geographical constituentcies is not. Two alternatives might be appointment by proportional representation or appointments by and through region. In the first, the number of Senate seats assigned to political parties would be based on their portion of the overall public vote. This would put an effective restraint on Governments that are formed without the overall consent of the voting public. The second alternative would give the Provinces some say in federal policies that undermine their interests. The trick will be in creating some mechanism that prevents any one Province, or Provincial Government, from using the Senate to dominate the federal agenda.
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