To the editor:
The contention that the Canadian Senate’s sense of entitlement is out of control is an understatement.
The Senate has a simple mandate, to give sober second thought to any legislation that is considered by the government of the day.
Without the authority to introduce, amend, rescind, adopt, or even stop legislation from becoming law, the Senate is almost irrelevant, and that is probably why the Senate was neutered before it was adopted.
Touring the country on the taxpayers dime, promoting the party that appointed them to the Senate is clearly outside of a Senator’s well defined mandate.
Canadian politicians do not want democratic governments, where the politicians are accountable to the people,. When the administration of the British North America Act (BNA) was transferred to the Canadian government in 1982, the government of the day arbitrarily retained the colonial power structure.
The recent Supreme Court ruling that we cannot reform the Senate is pure nonsense.
Provincial governments supported the adoption of the Constitution Act of Canada, but the Canadian Constitution is not a constitution adopted by the people by means of a binding national referendum. It is, in fact, nothing more and nothing less than another act of the federal Parliament that can be amended by the government of the day.
Andy Thomsen,
Peachland