Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T22:47:49.696Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Discovering the Senate's Fundamental Nature: Moving beyond the Supreme Court's 2014 Opinion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2019

Gary William O'Brien Open the ORCID record for Gary William O'Brien [Opens in a new window]
Gary William O'Brien*
Affiliation:
Former Clerk of the Senate and Clerk of the Parliaments
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: garyobrien@sympatico.ca
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In the 2014 reference, the Supreme Court sought to discover the Senate's “essential nature” in order to determine what reforms parliament could legislate unilaterally. Making use of a classification model found in comparative and historical studies, the Court concluded that the Senate was a “complementary legislative body of sober second thought.” This article re-examines the Court's narrow definition of the Senate's perceived role and presents evidence that its essential characteristics are direct continuations of various pre-Confederation design principles. Limiting a description of its architecture to a single model that eclipses all other roles the Senate may play shifts the debate on Senate reform, which in the recent past has laid emphasis on resolving the conflict among the models embedded in the upper chamber's essential characteristics. The article concludes by reviewing previous constitutional initiatives that aimed at bringing those models more in tune with modern Canada and by making suggestions about how reform proposals could better succeed.

Résumé

Dans le renvoi de 2014, la Cour suprême a cherché à découvrir la « nature essentielle » du Sénat pour déterminer quelles réformes le Parlement pourrait légiférer unilatéralement. S'inspirant d'un modèle de classification que l'on trouve dans des études comparatives et historiques, la Cour a conclu que le Sénat était un « corps législatif complémentaire de second examen objectif ». Le présent article réexamine la définition étroite que la Cour donne du rôle perçu du Sénat et démontre que ses caractéristiques essentielles sont le prolongement direct de divers principes de conception antérieurs à la Confédération. Limiter la description de son architecture à un modèle unique qui éclipse tous les autres rôles que le Sénat peut jouer déplace le débat sur la réforme du Sénat qui, dans un passé récent, a mis l'accent sur la résolution des conflits entre les modèles intégrés aux caractéristiques essentielles de la Chambre haute. L'article se termine par un examen des initiatives constitutionnelles antérieures qui visaient à harmoniser davantage ces modèles avec le Canada moderne et par des suggestions sur la façon dont les propositions de réforme pourraient mieux réussir.

Type
Research Article/Étude originale
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 52 , Issue 3 , September 2019 , pp. 539 - 555
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ajzenstat, Janet. 2007. The Canadian Founding: John Locke and Parliament. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press.Google Scholar
Ajzenstat, Janet, Romney, Paul, Gentles, Ian and Gairdner, William D., eds. 2003. Canada's Founding Debates. 2nd ed. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Beck, J. Murray. 1957. The Government of Nova Scotia. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Browne, G. P., ed. 1969. Documents on the Confederation of British North America. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart.Google Scholar
Careless, J. M. S., ed. 1980. The Pre-Confederation Premiers, Ontario Government Leaders, 1841–1867. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Craig, Gerald M., ed. 1963. Lord Durham's Report. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart.Google Scholar
Creighton, Donald. 1964. The Road to Confederation: The Emergence of Canada, 1863–1867. Toronto: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Dion, Stéphane. 2015. “The Future of the Senate: The Liberal View.” Policy Options. September 21. Institute for Research on Public Policy.Google Scholar
Dunham, Aileen. 1963. Political Unrest in Upper Canada, 1815–1836. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart.Google Scholar
Dunsmuir, Mollie. 1990. “The Senate: Appointments under Section 26 of the Constitution Act, 1867.” Library of Parliament.Google Scholar
Forbes, H. D., ed. 1985. Canadian Political Thought. Toronto: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Fox-Decent, Evan. 2007. “Parliamentary Privilege, Rule of Law and the Charter after the Vaid Case.” Canadian Parliamentary Review 30 (3): 27–35.Google Scholar
Franks, C. E. S. 1987. The Parliament of Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Grittner, Colin. 2015. “Privilege at the Polls: Culture, Citizenship, and the Electoral Franchise in Mid-Nineteenth-Century British North America.” Doctoral dissertation. McGill University, Montreal, Quebec.Google Scholar
Harder, V. Peter. 2018. “Complementarity: The Constitutional Role of the Senate of Canada.” Discussion paper. Senate of Canada.Google Scholar
Kennedy, W. P. M., ed. 1930. Statutes, Treatises and Documents of the Canadian Constitution, 1713–1929. 2nd ed. Toronto: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kunz, F. A. 1965. The Modern Senate of Canada, 1925–1963: A Re-appraisal. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Laurier, Sir Wilfrid. 1908. Canada. House of Commons Debates, Tenth Parliament, Fourth Session, Volume 1.Google Scholar
Levy, Gary. 2017. Canada. Special Senate Committee on Senate Modernization. Proceedings, Issue 10, Evidence, March 1, 2017.Google Scholar
Lijphart, Arend. 1987. “Bicameralism: Canadian Senate Reform in Comparative Perspective.” In Federalism and the Role of the State, ed. Bakvis, Herman and Chandler., William Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Mackay, Robert A. 1963. The Unreformed Senate of Canada. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart.Google Scholar
McNairn, Jeffery L. 2000. The Capacity to Judge: Public Opinion and Deliberative Democracy in Upper Canada, 1791–1854. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Minutes of the Proceedings of the Second Convention of the Delegates of the British American League. (1849) 2018. Toronto: Patriot Office. Reprint, London: Forgotten Books.Google Scholar
Moore, Christopher. 2015. Three Weeks in Quebec City: The Meeting That Made Canada. Toronto: Allen Lane.Google Scholar
Norton, Philip. 2017. Reform of the House of Lords. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
O'Brien, Gary. 1984. “Origins of the Confidence Convention.” Canadian Parliamentary Review 7 (3): 11–14.Google Scholar
Parliamentary Debates on the Subject of the Confederation of the British North American Provinces. 1865. Quebec: Hunter, Rose.Google Scholar
Patterson, Samuel C. and Mughan, Anthony. 1999. Senates: Bicameralism in the Contemporary World. Columbus: Ohio State University Press.Google Scholar
Province of Canada. Parliament. 1855, 1857. Debates of the Legislative Assembly.Google Scholar
Province of Canada. Parliament. 1849, 1858. Journals of the Legislative Council.Google Scholar
Quebec. 2017. Quebecers, Our Way of Being Canadian: Policy on Quebec Affirmation and Canadian Relations. (Secrétariat aux affaires intergouvernementales canadiennes, Directions des Communications, Ministère du Conseil exécutif), Policy Paper.Google Scholar
Russell, Meg. 2001. “The Territorial Role of Second Chambers.” The Journal of Legislative Studies 7 (1): 105–18.Google Scholar
Sait, Edward McChesney. 1938. Political Institutions: A Preface. New York: D. Appleton-Century.Google Scholar
Schneiderman, David. 2015. Red, White and Kind of Blue? The Conservatives and the Americanization of Canadian Constitutional Culture. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Smith, David E. 2003. The Canadian Senate in Bicameral Perspective. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Smith, David E. 2016. Canada. Special Senate Committee on Senate on Senate Modernization. Brief. “Coming to Terms: An Analysis of the Supreme Court Ruling on the Senate, 2014.”Google Scholar
Stilborn, Jack. 2003. “Forty Years of Not Reforming the Senate.” In Protecting Canadian Democracy: The Senate You Never Knew, ed. Joyal., Serge Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press.Google Scholar
Strauss, Leo and Cropsey, Joseph. 1987. History of Political Philosophy. 3rd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Supreme Court of Canada. Reference re: Authority of Parliament in Relation to the Upper House, [1980] 1 S.C.R. 54.Google Scholar
Supreme Court of Canada. Reference re: Secession of Quebec, [1998] 2 S.C.R. 217.Google Scholar
Supreme Court of Canada. Reference re: Senate Reform, [2014] 1 S.C.R. 704.Google Scholar
Thomas, Paul G. 2018. “The ‘New’ Improved Senate.” Policy Options, January 26. Institute for Research on Public Policy: 1–7.Google Scholar
Tsebelis, George and Money, Jeannette. 1997. Bicameralism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Turner, John N. 1961. “The Senate of Canada: Political Conundrum.” In Canadian Issues: Essays in Honour of Henry F. Angus, ed. Clark., Robert M. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.Google Scholar
United Kingdom. Hansard Parliamentary Debates. 1790–1791. Debates on the Second Quebec Government Bill.Google Scholar
United Kingdom. 2000. Royal Commission on the Reform of the House of Lords. A House for the Future. London: The Stationery Office.Google Scholar
Vile, M. J. C. 1998. Constitutionalism and the Separation of Powers. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.Google Scholar