Hi,
Saw a letter in the F'ton Gleaner today, calling for an elected Senate in Canada. I've attached a photo of it, but it's small and hard to read, so I've OCRed it and included the text below (with [sic] inserted next to the errors, and yeah, there were two in one letter, not a testament to the editorship of the paper).
I think an elected Senate makes a lot of sense, but not with FPTP, please! What a wasted opportunity that would be. The Senators should be elected with PR-STV. This is, after all, how Australia elects its Senate.
Does anyone want to write a letter to the Gleaner? Maybe I'll do it if no one else wants to, although I'm a bit preoccupied with NaNoWriMo lately.
Vivian
Featured letter
Some suggestions for an elected Senate I agree partly with the third last paragraph Of the Nov. 1 editorial, "PM's Senate picks rightly in doubt," which suggests that senators should be elected. But I disagree with most of the rest of the editorial.
I do not want some hack bean counter deciding what is best. Each province should have four senators, each elected for six years. Every three years, two of the four senators would be elected, followed three years later by the other two senators.
Senators' elections would be part of a general election every three years. Each senator and candidate would be eligible for election until their 70th birthday. Each senator would be renumerated[sic] at 1.75 times the average salary paid in Canada as posted yearly by Statistics Canada.
They would have to complete more than 110 hours each month of direct parliamentary duties; less than that would result in a 50 per cent pay cut for the month.
A majority vote of the Senate should be needed to appoint federal judges. Any bill presented to the Senate and returned three times to the House of Commons without approval would be dead.
Amending the Constitution should require approval of 70 per cent[sic] of senators.
Members of Parliament should also be elected to six-year terms, with elections for half of the House every three years. If a senator or MP can't complete a six-year term, the legislators of the home province I would select a replacement for the remainder of the term.
General elections for the House of Commons and Senate should be held every three years and a government that loses the confidence of the House should relinquish power within 10 days.
The king of a foreign country should not have a word to say on how Canada is run. Canadian voters have the responsibility and duty to decide how our country is run.?
Robert LeBlanc
