Conservatives pushing for referendum on Senate

Conservative Senator Hugh Segal has reintroduced a bill in the Senate to bring the question to Canadians. Does the Senate need to be changed.

It's time to hold a national referendum on the future of the Senate to finally let the people decide to elect, abolish, or maintain it and put the "legitimacy" question to rest, says Ontario Conservative Senator Hugh Segal.

Sen. Segal reintroduced his motion last week to hold a referendum asking Canadians how they want to proceed on Senate reform. Three years after the Conservatives were elected to govern on a platform of Senate reform, there have been no changes to the Upper Chamber, but Sen. Segal is still pushing the issue and the Liberal majority is still opposing it.

www.hilltimes.com...

This was a major plank in the Conservatives platform back in '06 but PM Harper has softened on the issue, maybe due to the fact he hasn't got his Majority.

Senator Segal has brought this idea forth several times now and continues to push for this. Some of the opponents of this have said it will cost too much money but when you think about it, it would cost about 30 million dollars to do this. The Senate costs about 60 million a year to run so for half the cost of a year, we can finally get this issue settled.

For me, I think at the very least, we need to have an elected second chamber. These appointments for what can amount to life is ridiculous. For someone that gets appointed at say 40/45, thats 30/35 years in a political career that no one voted for. They have way to much power for an unelected body.



The link won't work. If you add this after the link...

php?display=story&full_path=2009/may/4/legislation/&c=2

you'll get to the article.

[edit on 5-5-2009 by GAOTU789]