In February of this year I wrote about the role of the Senate in the Canadian system of government. At that time I said, "The Senate has an important role to play in the functioning of our system. It was originally designed as a House of "sober second thought." This expression has come to define the Senate chamber as a place outside the political fray where legislation might be "reconsidered." Originally this idea developed in connection to the conservative tradition of the British model that allowed for a "check" on the power of the elected body. Remember that a Prime Minister with a majority government is quite powerful in moving forward a legislative agenda. The Senate was also put in place to represent minority issues and regions like the "Maritimes" particularly at the time of Confederation when the Maritime provinces (then New Brunswick and Nova Scotia) were overshadowed by the populations in Ontario and Quebec....
The continued call for Senate reform has come as a result of number of criticisms. First, ...some Senators have not taken the role very seriously. They have broken faith with the public and taken advantage of the lucrative salary and benefits without the corresponding commitment to the post (although this is not true of many Senators). Second, the Senate has been filled with appointees with deep political affiliations. An elected Senate would not fix this problem and would likely exacerbate it. It seems to me that the real issue is the continued decline in trust in our political institutions. We have not done an effective job of explaining to the public the central role that this institution can and, should play, in our democracy..."
Today, I find myself reconsidering those words... a least little bit... I still strongly defend the role of Senate in Canadian democracy. I think that a call to scrap the Senate is not the answer to the current scandal. This situation is really about a betrayal of public trust and not about the effectiveness of the Senate but I do understand the considerable frustration of citizens; I feel similarly angry.
As a political scientist my task is to explain the function of our political institutions and to critically examine their strengths and their weaknesses. The Senate certainly has both its good and bad points and as Ronald Watts points out in Serge Joyal's book, Protecting Canadian Democracy: The Senate You Never Knew, "A bicameral parliament or legislature is not only a feature of Canada but also of most mature democracies and particularly of nearly all federal political systems." The Senate has a number of functions that are critical to democratic representation - even if Senators are not elected - and it is part of the framework of checks and balances that are laid out in the constitution.
But this scandal is really about human nature and not about role of the Senate. Beyond my regular classes about the working of politics, I also teach political philosophy and this story of the betrayal of public trust reminds me of the lessons learned in Plato's Republic. In this magnificent book, Plato contemplates the reasons that a just man would choose to live a just life over an unjust life even when there are no consequences for choosing an unjust life. Plato sets up this question by creating dialogue between two men. Glaucon, asks Socrates to consider the life of a man named Gyges. Glaucon says that, upon finding a ring that makes him invisible, Gyges decides to kill the King, take the Queen as his own and rules over the kingdom. The ring makes him invisible and immune to the consequences. Glacon says that even a just man would choose the ring if there were no consequences for his actions. Socrates says (and I paraphrase since the whole rest of the book is his defence), "No, the just man would not choose the ring. He would not harm is own soul for the sake of the wealth or the power or the fame." But this ring is tempting and politicians, like other people, are not immune to its lure. The question at hand is, "What type of effective oversight should be in place when individuals make bad decisions?" Scrapping the Senate is not the answer.
