Last week's Supreme Court of Canada ruling on what the government can, and cannot do to amend the Senate, tops off a year where the Senate was in the news far more than it should have been. There is unanimous opinion across Canada that the Senate needs to change. Unfortunately, there is no corresponding unanimity as to how it should be changed, or even how it could be changed. With tongue planted only partially in cheek, I suggest we take a page from renaissance Florence and appoint Senators through a national lottery.
For more than 400 years Florence was an independent republic at the heart of renaissance Europe. Florence gave us the art of Michelangelo, Botticelli, and countless others. Its favourite son, Leonardo Da Vinci, was not only a great artist but an incredible scientist and engineer as well. The Medici family provided many contemporary Popes and also revolutionized banking; their invention of the double entry accounting system is familiar to any modern bookkeeper. But what about their system of government? What provided them with 400 years of more or less stable and good government and can we learn from their experience?
As a republic, Florence was ruled by a council of nine senators. Interestingly though, the senators were appointed through a lottery system. To be eligible to serve as a Senator, one had to have a sound financial situation and be at least 30 years of old. This is remarkably similar to the current criteria to enter the Canadian senate where the minimum age is also 30, and where one must also not be bankrupt or insolvent. In Florence, there was an additional requirement that one had to be a member of one of the main trading guilds. Anyone who met these qualifications had their name put into a hat and could be called upon to serve if randomly chosen.
Could such a system work in Canada? I don't see why not. We already use the lottery system to decide jurors in criminal cases. Furthermore, right here in British Columbia, we recently trusted a similar system to propose fundamental changes to our voting system. In 2004, the BC government used a lottery system to appoint 161 people from across B.C. to the Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform. This group of everyday people from across the province proposed that we change our voting system to one based on proportional representation. While the measure ultimately failed in a subsequent referendum, there was recognition from all quarters that the people chosen through the lottery system did an outstanding job in deliberating on reform.
Florence lasted over 400 years as an independent republic. Canada has yet to mark 150 years as an independent nation. I hope we can make it as long as Florence did and contribute equally in the fields of art, science and commerce. Reforming our Senate in the Florentine tradition of random selection would be a good first start!
